16
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UC-NRLF
in
Congress of horticulture
1st, Jamestown, 1907.
Proceedings.
Proceedings
Congress of Horticulture
Jamestown Exposition,
September 23, 1907
National Council of Horticulture
PROCEEDINGS
OF A
Congress of Horticulture
HELD AT
JAMESTOWN EXPOSITION
September 23, 1907
CONDUCTED BY THE
National Council of Horticulture
AT THE REQUEST OF R. H. SEXTON
Chief of the Bureau of Congresses and Special Events of the Exposition
H. C. IRISH, Secretary
Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Mo.
PATRONS—
Publication of these proceedings has been made possible by contributions
from the following:
BRASLAN SEED GROWERS' CO., San Jose, Cal.
W. ATLEE BURPEE & CO., Philadelphia, Pa.
HENRY A. DREER, Philadelphia, Pa.
ELLW ANGER & BARRY, Rochester, N. Y.
A. C. KENDEL, Cleveland, O.
F. R. PIERSON CO., Tarrytown, N. Y.
STORRS & HARRISON CO., Painesville, O.
VAUGHAN'S SEED STORE, Chicago, 111.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
LIBRARY
DAVIS
NATIONAL COUNCIL
OF
HORTICULTURE
J. C. VAUGHAN, Chairman
Chicago, Illinois
H. C. IRISH, Secretary
Mo. Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Mo
DELEGATES AT LARGE
PROFESSOR W. B. ALWOOD, Charlottesville, Va.
PROFESSOR S. A. BEACH, Ames, Iowa
PROFESSOR L. R. TAFT, Agricultural College, Mich.
PROFESSOR S. B. GREEN, St. Anthony Park, Minn.
PROFESSOR E. J. WICKSON, Berkeley, Calif.
PROFESSOR W. W. TRACY, Washington, D. C.
H. C. IRISH, St. Louis, Mo.
J. HORACE MCFARLAND, Harrisburg, Pa.
J. H. HALE, South Glastonbury, Conn.
DELEGATES FROM SOCIETIES
Society of American Florists
ROBERT CRAIG, Philadelphia, Pa.
JOHN K. M. L. FARQUHAR, Boston, Mass.
American Association of Nursery
C. J. MALOY, Rochester, N. Y.
CHAS. T. SMITH, Concord, Ga.
American Seed Trade Association
C. E. KENDEL, Cleveland, Ohio
J. C. VAUGHAN, Chicago, 111.
National Nut Grozvers' Association
PROF. F. H. BURNETTE, Baton Rouge, La.
J. F. WILSON, Poulan, Ga.
CONTENTS
ADDRESS OF WELCOME 7, 8
SOILS , 10
PLANT PATHOLOGY 17
INSECT ENEMIES 20
VEGETABLE BREEDING , 28
BREEDING AND PROPAGATION OF FLORISTS' FLOWERS 32
NUT CULTURE IN OUR RURAL ECONOMY 42
COMMERCIAL GROWING OF GARDEN VEGETABLES 46
COMMERCIAL GROWING OF ORNAMENTAL PLANTS 49
COMMERCIAL GROWING OF CUT FLOWERS 53
FOREST PROBLEMS 57
HORTICULTURAL CONDITIONS IN CANADA 65
HORTICULTURE IN THE EASTERN STATES 68
HORTICULTURE IN THE CENTRAL WEST 71
SOUTHERN HORTICULTURAL CONDITIONS 75
OUR NATIONAL FORESTS : . . . . 76
Civic HORTICULTURE AND Civic IMPROVEMENT 82
LANDSCAPE GARDENING 87
HORTICULTURAL SCHOOLS AND EXPERIMENT STATIONS 92
GOVERNMENT AID TO HORTICULTURE 98
FEDERATION AND CO-OPERATION.. 106
PROCEEDINGS
OF
CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
Jamestown Exposition, September 23, 1907
Chairman J. C. Vaughan of the National Council of Horticulture
called the Congress to order in Convention Hall, Jamestown Exposi-
tion Grounds, 10 a. m, September 23, 1907. He outlined the origin of
the call of the Congress and stated the reason for its existence.
He then introduced S. A. Robinson of Charlottesville, Virginia,
Vice-President of the Virginia State Horticultural Society, who wel-
comed the visitors. Lieutenant-Governor J. Taylor . Ellyson welcomed
the Congress on behalf of the Exposition authorities. Chairman
Vaughan presented Warren H. Manning as chairman of the morn-
ing session, owing to the absence of J. H. Hale, of South Glaston-
bury, Conn., who was detained at home by sickness. The papers were
read as follows :
"Soils," by Professor F. H. King, Madison, Wis.
"Plant Diseases," by Dr. A. F. Woods, Washington, D. C.
"Insect Enemies," by A. L. Quaintance, Washington, D. C.
"Florists' Flowers," by W. N. Rudd, Mt. Greenwood, 111.
The discussion of all papers read was taken up at the end of each
session.
AFTERNOON SESSION.
The afternoon meeting opened at 2:15 with Professor L. R. Taft
of the Agricultural College, Mich., in the chair, in the absence of
Professor Green, of St. Anthony Park, Minn. The following papers
were read:
"Garden Vegetables," by W. W. Rawson, Boston, Mass.
"Cut Flowers," by F. R. Pierson, Tarrytown, N. Y.
"Forest Trees," by Professor F. W. Rane, Boston, Mass.
"Local Conditions in Canada," by Professor W. T. Macoun,
Ottawa, Ontario.
"Local Conditions in the Eastern States," by John K. M. L.
Farquahr, Boston, Mass.
"Local Conditions in the Central West," by L. A. Goodman,
Kansas City, Mo.
"Our National Forests," by W. L. Hall, Washington, D. C.
6 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
Professor L. R. Taft, H. C. Irish and J. C. Vaughan made some
brief remarks on the work of the National Council of Horticulture.
Adjournment was had at 5:15 'to the auditorium room of the In-
side Inn and on invitation of Messrs. Rawson, Pierson, Kendel and
Vaughan the delegates as a body proceeded to the balcony cafe of that
hostelry, where fifty persons sat down to dinner at 6:00 o'clock.
Warren H. Manning presided and J. C. Olmsted and Mrs. Olmsted
were guests of honor.
EVENING SESSION.
Professor S. A. Beach of Ames, la., in the chair. Beginning at
7 :30 the following papers were read :
''Civic Horticulture," by Warren H. Manning, Boston, Mass.
"Landscape Gardening," by John C. Olmsted, Brookline, Mass.
"Schools and Experiment Stations," by Dr. A. C. True, Wash-
ington, D. C.
"The Horticultural Press," by Leonard Barren, New York City.
"Government Aid," by Dr. B. T. Galloway, Washington, D. C.
"Federation and Co-operation," by J. C. Vaughan, Chicago, 111.
The discussion of these valuable papers, particularly those of
Messrs. Manning, Olmsted, Drs. True and Galloway, was very gen-
eral and continued until nearly 11 o'clock, when the general Con-
gress adjourned.
The following were noted among those in attendance :
Wm. B. Alwood, Charlottesville, J. L. Hartwell, Dixon, 111.
Va. U. P. Hedrick, Geneva, N. Y.
H. Augustine, Normal, 111. Dr. B. von Herff, New York
J. Lyman Babcock, Norfolk, Va. City.
S. A. Beach, Ames, la. H. L. Hutt, Guelph, Ontario.
G. B. Brackett, Washington, D. C. W. N. Hutt, Raleigh, N. C.
C. P. Close, College Park, Md. Mrs. W. N. Hutt, Raleigh, N. C.
Mrs. C. P. Close, College Park, H. C. Irish, St. Louis, Mo.
Md. Miss Emma Jacobson, Chicago, 111.
Chas. S. Crandall, Urbana, 111. L. B. Judson, Ithaca, N. Y.
Albert Dickens, Manhattan, Kan. C. E. Kendel, Cleveland, O.
C. H. Dutcher, Warrensburg, Mo. F. H. King, Madison, Wis.
E. M. East, New Haven, Conn. E. W. Kirkpatrick, McKinley,
J. K. M. L. Farquhar, Boston, Tex.
Mass. W. R. Lazenby, Columbus, O.
W. T. Flournoy, Marionville, Mo. R. S. Mackintosh, Auburn, Ala.
Dr. B. T. Galloway, Washington, W. T. Macoun, Ottawa, Ontario.
D. C. Warren H. Manning, Boston,
L. A. Goodman, Kansas City, Mo. Mass.
Mrs. L. A. Goodman, Kansas City, A. McNeill, Ottawa, Ontario.
Mo. A. P. Mitra, Calcutta, Ind.
Wesley Greene, Des Moines, la. John C. Olmsted, Brookline,
W. L. Hall, Washington, D. C. Mass.
E. V. Hallock, Queens, N. Y. Mrs. John C. Olmsted, Brookline,
Orlando Harrison, Berlin, Md. Mass.
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 7
F. R. Pierson, Tarrytown, N. Y. H. E. Van Deman, Washington,
A. L. Quaintance, Washington, D. C.
D. C. J. Van Lindley, Pomona, N. C.
F. W. Rane, Boston, Mass. J. C. Vaughan, Chicago, 111.
W. W. Rawson, Boston, Mass. Dr. Roger T. Vaughan, Chicago,
W. Routzahn, Chicago, 111. . 111.
W. J. Stewart, Boston, Mass. C. L. Watrous, Des Moines, la.
Wm. Stuart, Burlington, Vt. H. S. Wayman, Princeton, Mo.
L. R. Taft, Agricultural College, John T. Withers, Jersey City, N. J.
Mich. Dr. A. F. Woods, Washington,
Dr. A. C. True, Washington, D. C. D. C.
MORNING SESSION.
Chairman Vaughan : Gentlemen, it becomes my duty to call to
order this Congress of Horticulture, the organization of which is due
to Mr. Warren H. Manning more than anyone else. Through him the
authorities of the Jamestown Exposition saw fit to call for a Congress
of Horticulture, and incidentally asked the National Council of Hor-
ticulture to arrange for this Congress.
I hardly need say that on national occasions like this a great
exposition is made of what man has done with things material. It has
been thought wise to have meetings which consider the laws according
to which these things are made, and which may be produced again at
will. The Congress of Horticulture will seem to be as important as
an exposition of plants, fruits and flowers.
At this Congress we aim to bring down to date a resume of what
has been accomplished since our last Congress; to survey our chosen
field, horticulture, on all sides and at each to summarize in a broad
way about as follows: First, where are we? Second, what are we
doing? Third, what are our prospects? The papers which will be
presented to you have been prepared in the main on these lines, and
I believe will not disappoint those who have traveled far to be here,
nor that world-wide, audience which will later read them.
Originally the program was intended to cover two days, but find-
ing a possible conflict the last day with the opening session of the
Pomological Society, which is holding its regular biennial session here,
the program committee arranged to close with the evening session.
ADDRESS OF WELCOME.
S. A. ROBINSON, CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA.
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Horticultural Congress, it
is a pleasure to welcome a body of such men as you to the State of
Virginia, and it is eminently proper that the first meeting of this Con-
gress should be near the spot upon which probably grew the first
domestic fruit trees brought to this continent. It would be very inter-
esting to know how many of the 78 varieties described by Ray in 1686
8 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
were imported into this country about 300 years ago. ' No doubt many
of them were. I hope some of you learned delegates will enlighten
us with regard to what they were and when they were brought here.
We, of Virginia, have such an abiding faith in horticulture that we
propose to get into close company with the best of you, and to know
you better and to have you know us better. Virginia was fourteenth
in the number of trees at the last count of apple trees in the states
of the Union, but only fifth in the production of apples, so it is doing
pretty well. I am confident that she can produce as choice fancy
apples and as many to the acre, within her area, as any state in the
Union, so you ought to feel that you are in a country where you are
at home. That is just what we want.
I am going to make the claim which some of you may dispute, but
I do it for the purpose of learning; namely, that Virginia has the
record of the world for the length of time the trees have been grow-
ing and the commercial value of the output. There is an orchard
of fifteen trees at Covesville, Albermarle County, in Virginia, whose
trees have been bearing' for over eighty years. One year a single tree
produced 22 bushels of apples which were sold for $5.00 per bushel at
the tree. The fifteen trees have produced $700.00 worth of apples in
one year. Those old trees are bearing to-day. I visited them about
four days ago and they are worthy of being handled by the Hood
River Apple Growers' Union. Their apples will average $50 a tree
this year. Until within three years, they were never sprayed, never
properly pruned, never fertilized in any way nor cultivated, and had
no attention whatever. Those men planted trees and trusted to Provi-
dence and the favorable soil and the genial climate of that part of the
state to secure them a remarkable profit. Much of our area will pro-
duce good commercial fruit, but there is no part of the country that
has a very large area that will produce the choicest fancy fruit, which
fact you probably know better than I.
Leaving this question of rivalry aside, which I merely bring up
to show what has been done, I want to say that you are most welcome
here, and I want to tell you that the hospitality . of Virginia shines
brightest in its homes. You must visit us at our homes and come under
the enchantment of the sweet voices of the graceful, beautiful and
winsome women of this state in order to feel the full spell of the hos-
pitality of Virginia. If you will linger long enough to do that, you
will indeed taste of the lotus of Virginia's hospitality and we shall
expect you to return, because those who once tasted, hunger for it
ever after.
ADDRESS OF WELCOME,
J. TAYLOR ELLYSON, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA.
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, you had the courage of a very lofty
aim when you undertook to have a Congress, a National Congress of
Horticulture, but you had an aim worthy of your best endeavors, and
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 9
you have come together in the hope of achieving results that will
redound to the greatest good of that which you represent. We have
long ago learned, certainly men of my age, that strength and useful-
ness are not always in numbers. Who can tell who commanded at
Balaklava the army of men in that famous charge who in Tenny-
son's poem have won an immortality of fame? And so it is, whether
en the field of battle or in the more peaceful contests in which we
are now engaged, it is the men who do something that will count, and
the men who have done great things, although not always recognized,
have been the men who sit before me and those whom you represent.
Look about you. If a member of this organization who happens this
morning to be your presiding officer desired you to know what he has
done he would have to adopt the motto of Sir Christopher Wren and
say : "If you wish to see my monument, look about you." And you
will find in the beautiful creations along the line of his chosen work
on these grounds some of the most charming results of that most
charming department of work, landscape gardening.
I am very glad to be able to welcome you on the part of the Ex-
position. I feel that it will not be fair to occupy your attention to-
day, or to interrupt your discussion, more than to tell you that we
are glad to see you and to express the hope that you will remain
with us until you have known something of what we have here to
show you, and I think that when you shall have done that, you will
be able to say of many of the departments, what was said of our
historical collection by one of the most eminent men in this country
who had the pleasure of visiting it a few days ago and who is a high
authority on such work, that there never had been gathered in this
country a finer collection of historical material than we have in the
History Building on these grounds, and so you will find it in other
collections. Take time to look at it, and I am sure that you will en-
joy it. Above all, be certain that whatever else may befall, you will
not fail to have had a warm and generous welcome on behalf of
the Jamestown Exposition Company.
Chairman Vaughan : Mr. J. H. Hale, our chairman for the first
session, being absent, Mr. Warren H. Manning has consented to pre-
side.
Chairman Manning : We will take up the papers consecutively, and
call upon Professor F. H. King, Madison. Wis., for his paper on
"Soils." I wish to say that Professor King and Professor Babcock
were the pioneers in the study of soils, and it is largely from this
investigation that the Government Department of Soils has grown, and
those who know the vast amount of benefit that comes from the
Department publications to all who have to do with outdoor affairs
will recognize how important this pioneer work was. Professor King's
book on soils, in the Rural Science Series, and also the many pamph-
lets in the Government Department upon the same subject are also
an authority upon farm buildings, ventilation, and other matters, as
well as upon soils.
10 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS. OF HORTICULTURE
SOILS.
THEIR PRODUCTIVITY AS INFLUENCED BY COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE.
F. H. KING, MADISON, Wis.
Soils are an aggregation of rock and mineral fragments carrying
an admixture of organic debris, together with substances in soluble
and colloidal condition. The productivity of soils is determined by
their composition, by their structure, by their climate, and by the life
activities within them. By composition we refer to their mineral and
chemical nature ; by their structure we refer to the size of the soil
grains and the segregation of them; by their climate we refer to
their water content, their temperature, their aeration, their drainage;
by life activities we refer to the interaction of the roots of plants
and micro-organisms upon one another, upon the soil grains, upon the
organic matter, upon substances in solution and upon colloids.
COMPOSITION.
The composition of soils, and their structure so far as it influences
weight, determines the absolute amount of plant food elements per
unit volume, per cubic foot, per acre-foot or per acre-four-feet, which
is the depth to which most crops are able to feed, to which they send
their roots if all the factors of productivity are at their best. Com-
position, therefore, determines the endurance of a field, the outermost
limit of its productive capacity. This statement is not in accord with
the teaching of our national Department of Agriculture where it
affirms :
"That practically all soils contain sufficient plant food for good
crop yields, that the supply will be indefinitely maintained and that
this actual yield of plants adapted to the soil depends mainly, under
favorable climatic conditions, upon cultural methods and suitable crop
rotations."
It is safe to say that no statement in recent years, designed to
direct agricultural practice and issued by high authority, is further
from the truth than thist Few statements could be more misleading
and land agents are using it, both in good faith and unscrupu-
lously, to sell at high price low grade lands. Much nearer the truth
is the statement : No soils contain sufficient plant food for maximum
yields when all other factors are at their best; and the best cultural
methods, with rotation of crops, only hasten the exhaustion of soils.
The Department's teaching has resulted from confusing plant food
elements with plant food. Analysis has demonstrated that primary
rock, crushed to the fineness of soil, may carry per acre-four-feet 78
tons of potassium, 250 tons of calcium, 133 tons of magnesium and
even 8 tons of phosphorus. So, too, an acre-four-feet of good soil
may carry as much as 100 tons of potassium, 45 tons of calcium, 35
tons of magnesium and even 12 tons of phosphorus, and there is this
much foundation in fact for the statement criticized. But these enor-
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 11
mous amounts of plant food elements present in the root zone of field
crops are no more to be regarded as plant food for those crops than
they are food for the animals feeding upon pasture grass.
The food of plants, derived from the soil, is only certain substances
which are dissolved in the soil moisture or which are carried in the
soil in a form which may be readily so taken up ; and the amounts
of these, present in the root zone of field crops at any one time, is
relatively very small when compared with the amounts of plant food
elements from which they are derived. Much more is a soil like a
pasture where plant food grows than like a bank or granary where
it is stored, and just as a rich pasture may produce sufficient grass
to carry a large herd so may a fertile soil produce, from day to day,
plant food sufficient for good crops. Just as pastures differ in the
amounts of herbage on the ground and in the amounts they are able to
add to this as it is fed away, so do fields differ, both in the amounts
of plant food present in the root zone at any one time and in the
amounts they are able to add as this is withdrawn. Our own observa-
tions, published by the Bureau of Soils, have demonstrated that four
good soils, observed to produce two and a half times the yield per
acre of corn and potatoes that four poorer soils did under identical
treatment, also gave up, when washed three minutes in five times
their weight of pure water, 2.58 times as much plant food. Not
only was there this difference in the amounts of plant food car-
ried in water-soluble form in the best and in the poorer soils, but the
amounts of this same plant food taken out of like areas of field by
like numbers and kinds of plants during the same time was 3.2 times
as great in the sap of the plants which gave the highest yields. Such
observations would appear to fully justify the general conviction that
increased yields should be directly attributed to better feeding and
that better feeding is a direct result of larger amounts of plant food
available to the crop. It is taught, however, by the Bureau of Soils,
that all soil solutions are sensibly identical in composition and in
concentration ; that they are strong enough for large yields and that
this strength will be indefinitely maintained. From these conclusions
the Bureau further teaches that mineral fertilizers, green and stable
manures and a good rotation of crops owe their efficiency to the
power they have of neutralizing toxic principles which tend to accumu-
late in cultivated soils, rather than to any power of increasing avail-
able plant food, an abundance of which, at all times and in all soils,
is held to be present.
While it is true that good soils may yield to pure water two,
three and more times the amounts of plant food that poorer soils
will, and while the absolute differences may be as 3,200 pounds per
acre-four-feet to 1,200 pounds, yet these quantities are so small in pro-
portion to the total water present in the soil that one may in truth
say, from the standpoint of the chemical balance, as Professor Whit-
ney does, that the composition and concentration of all soil solutions
are sensibly the same. Nevertheless it is undoubtedly true that soil
solutions are measurably different, both in composition and con-
12 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
centration, and from the standpoint of plant functions they must be
profoundly so for organic life is almost inconceivably sensitive to
small quantities of matter.
Our published results show, too, that we are able to recover from
the surface four feet of good soil as much water-soluble plant food
of both potassium and phosphorus as would be removed from a field
by nine 40-bushel crops of wheat, and from poorer soil as much as
would be removed by six such crops, and here again is what has
been thought a safe foundation for the contention that even in water-
soluble form the poorest soils contain plant food enough for good
yields. So there is, in absolute quantity but not in available quantity.
For example, a three-horse tread-power may be in such condition that
when one horse is put upon it no work is done ; adding a second
horse may yield only half an available horse-power, but when the
third horse is put in place its whole weight may yield effective power
so that the available work becomes three times what it was with
two horses. So it may be with soils. Plant food enough for per-
haps many crops must be present in order that enough for one may
become available.
So far as we know, either from published data or on a priori
grounds, there is no foundation for the hope that the supply of plant
food in soils may be indefinitely maintained simply by good tillage
and suitable crop rotations which make positive additions only of
nitrogen to the soil. The only way Nature has ever produced crops,
and this is the way she has always maintained soil fertility, has been
to return to the field the whole crop, and working along this line
for a thousand years together she never did and never can bring
all her soils to an equality in productive capacity as should be the
case if all soils carry an abundance of plant food.
A very simple calculation based on well established data will show
that an exhaustion of the plant food elements, large as these amounts
are, must necessarily follow any system of cropping which involves no
return to the soil other than nitrogen. The amounts of plant food
removed by certain crops are definitely known ; the absolute amounts of
plant food elements carried by good soils are known and, taking 20 tons
of potassium per acre-foot, which is about the amount carried, a quan-
tity equal to the whole of this would be removed in about 1,400 years
by wheat yields of 40 bushels per acre ; and the entire amount of phos-
phorus carried by the surface foot is equivalent to only about 400 such
crops. Careful records have shown that the Mississippi river carries out
to sea annually enough material to lower its entire drainage area one
foot each 4,000 to 6,000 years, which means that the surface foot of
soil may be completely removed and replaced by a corresponding layer
from below at the same rate ; but the rate of removal of potassium
by a 40-bushel crop of wheat is three to four times as rapid as this,
and the crop exhaustion for phosphorus is ten to fifteen times as rapid
as rock is being converted into new soil on the average, over the
Mississippi valley. Were Professor Whitney's contention true the
mean productive capacity of the soils of the Mississippi valley should
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 13
be no more than three to four bushels of wheat per acre, for this is the
rate at which rock weathering and erosion are supplying phosphorus
to the soil from below.
*
STRUCTURE.
From the standpoint of structure soils differ very widely, both in
the extent of their internal surface and in the character and extent of
Ihe segregation of their particles. These differences are fundamental
and very important in determining the relative productive capacity and
in directing agricultural practice. An acre-four-feet of one foot gran-
ite blocks would possess an internal surface of 24 acres to which
water might adhere, upon which plant food might develop and where
it might be stored, over which the roots of plants might spread and
feed, and where soil organisms might dwell. To reduce the diameters
of these cubes from one to one-thousandth of a foot would increase
the internal surface one thousandfold, making it aggregate 24,000
acres per acre of field. But even this surface is too small to maintain
a high productive capacity. Our coarsest sandy soils possess an in-
ternal surface per acre-four-feet exceeding 45 square miles per acre
of field; our loams, 270 square miles, while our finest clay types
possess an internal surface exceeding 1,300 square miles per acre of
field. It is clear, therefore, that there must be wide differences in
the productive capacity of soils due to differences of internal surface
alone, even when their chemical natures may be identical. This must
be so because where there is more surface more water can be retained,
plant food may form more rapidly and more may be stored and held
in reserve and even accumulated during intervals of small demand as
well as retained against loss by leaching.
The innermost portion of water films investing soil grain sur-
faces, in our judgment, is held there with so much force as to be
little subject to change, by either drainage or capillary movement, and
also becomes highly charged with plant food which likewise is strongly
retained, escaping only by the slow process of diffusion when the roots
of plants are placed in contact with the soil grain surfaces or when
the excess of hydrostatic and capillary portions of water are moving
by. We have found, for example, that when a chemically cleaned
sand was charged with a solution of potassium nitrate ten repeated
washings in twice its weight of distilled water left in the films of
moisture retained by the sand grains enough of the nitrate to repre-
sent 244 pounds per acre-four-feet. Plant food so retained by soils
may still be available to crops for their root hairs are similarly invested
with water films and when placed in apposition with the soil grains
the water films become common to the two and simple diffusion per-
mits the root to feed upon the plant food so retained.
This brings me to consider a principle underlying proper land
drainage. It is very important that when rain falls upon a field the
excess water remain only just long enough on its way through the
open water passages to' saturate the soil; anything longer than this
14 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
provides time and opportunity for the most valuable plant food mate-
rials carried in the water films about the soil grains to diffuse out into
the moving water and so become lost in the drainage. Thus we have
an explanation of a* seeming paradox, namely : properly drained fields
lose less of their soluble plant food by underdrainage than do those
poorly drained.
Next in importance to internal soil surface, among the physical
factors which determine the productive capacity of soils, is the segre-
gation of their soil particles into granules, crumbs or kernels. With-
out it all but the extremely sandy soils must be sterile, even though
they carry an abundance of plant food. Without segregation we have
the puddled soil or clay, but with segregation highly developed we
have the light, deep, tractable, mellow fertile loams so congenial to the
widest range of crops.
The low producing power, or absolute sterility, so invariably asso-
ciated with puddled soils and with those too close in texture, we
believe to be primarily due to a lack of available moisture, notwith-
standing the seeming paradox that they are carrying an excess of it.
It is a familiar fact that crops wilt and cease to grow in close textured
clayey soils still carrying 8 to 12 per cent of water, while they may
grow luxuriantly in coarse sandy soils possessing but 1 to 3 per cent.
So, too, we often find desert types of vegetation growing in humid
climates on extremely close grained clayey soils and more strangely
still in peat swamps where the water content is excessively high. To
understand these facts it must be remembered that there is a certain
thickness of water film which is held so firmly to the soil grain sur-
faces as to be wholly unavailable to the crop. Portions of this layer
cannot be driven off completely even at the temperature of boiling
water. When all of the facts shall have been worked out we believe
it will be found that the thickness of the unavailable water about the
surface of soil grains is essentially the same whether these be large,
as in the coarse sandy types, or very small as in the finest clays ; and
if this is the case the absolute amount of unavailable water must
increase as the internal surface of the soil becomes greater and as the
diameter of the soil particles decreases.
The coarse sandy soils, with their relatively small internal sur-
face, carry a correspondingly small amount of unavailable water and
hence in them small rainfalls in dry times have a relatively high
efficiency. So, too, must soluble plant food and fertilizers, when
applied to them, for the same reason, have a relatively high efficiency.
But in the finest clay soils, especially if they are not strongly granu-
lated, the amount of unavailable water is very large and hence it is
that heavier rainfall during drought periods and more liberal applica-
tions of fertilizers are required to produce the same relative increase.
But it is possible to have the finest clay soils so completely puddled,
or separated into their ultimate grains, and the effective soil surface
thereby so enormously increased, by the minuteness of the particles,
that nearly the whole of the water, even when the soil is saturated,
becomes unavailable to plants and for the simple reason that the water
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 15
films are too thin and therefore too strongly held to be removed.
From the standpoint of plant function, we have the paradoxical condi-
tion of a sandy soil, containing perhaps one per cent of water, being
effectively more moist than a puddled clay soil containing 20 to 30 per
cent or than a peaty soil containing perhaps 40 to 50 per cent.
But when the finest clay soils are put in a highly granular condi-
tion, with the kernels having the order of coarseness of the sandy
soils, these compound grains may themselves become invested with
water films which are thick and therefore available to crops. By such
a change of structure, therefore, the clay soils not only retain their
enormous surfaces, carrying water in which plant food may develop
and accumulate, but by the bunching of the fine particles there has
been superadded to the already enormous surface an additional large
area which now is able to retain much water in available form and so
advantageously placed that the plant food from the moisture within
the soil kernel can diffuse out into the available film and thus also
become available to the crop. Tilth, or the physical condition of the
soil, then, must be of very great importance in determining the pro-
ductive capacity of fields, first of all because it limits the availability
of the soil moisture and through this, at the same time, the availability
of plant food itself. Without the coarse grained texture and openness
of structure there must be imperfect drainage, inadequate soil ventila-
tion and a lack of freedom for movement and of room for the proper
development of either the roots of crops or the multitudes of soil
organisms whose activity is so indispensable to the maintenance of soil
fertility. The full significance of this openness of structure may be
better appreciated when it is stated that exact measurement has shown
that when soils of the coarse sandy, loamy and finest clay types arc
reduced to their single grain condition the rates of air and water
movement through them become as 900 to 36 to 1; the flow being 900
times as rapid through the coarse sandy soil as through the finest clay
type. Put in another way, if 2.5 hours are required to remove an
excess of rainfall from the coarse sandy soil, then four months would
be insufficient to effect the same result in a field of the finest clay
type when in the condition of its single grain structure ; while some
four days would be required for the loamy soil, and this is longer than
the average interval between rains in humid climates. More than this,
in the properly open soils there is but 2.5 hours between rainfalls dur-
ing which diffusion can carry the soluble plant food into the water
draining away, while in the other condition this loss by drainage is
continuous.
If a high productive capacity of fields is to be secured and main-
tained then in some manner must all soils be given an openness of
structure approaching that possessed by our coarse sandy types. The
factor of paramount importance in securing prime tilth, or the best
possible structure, is an abundance of organic matter deeply and thor-
oughly incorporated in the soil; and with this must always be asso-
ciated ample underdrainage which fortunately generally exists where
structure is right. For ordinary field conditions this incorporation of
16 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
organic matter must be secured through deep plowing which aims to
turn all waste refuse and occasionally green and stable manures. Go-
ing with this practice there must be an intelligent rotation of crops
which includes the legumes, to accumulate nitrogen from the air, and
to fix it deeply in the soil in their tubercle and root growth ; which
includes the grasses having dense root systems tending to both deeply
and finely divide the soil by the close ramification of their roots and
to make the granules so formed more rigid by the cementing action
of substances rendered soluble by the carbonic acid transpired through
their roots and which accumulate in the granules by diffusion to become
precipitated there as the soil is deeply and thoroughly dried by the
action of the roots in supplying the plant with water. The cereal,
vegetable, fiber and sugar crops exert but a feeble structure-building
effect upon the soil. They tend rather to weaken soil structure by the
removal of the soluble plant food ingredients which have accumulated
there, thus rendering it both structurally defective and deficient in
immediately available plant food. These last crops, therefore, make
chiefly the financial earnings while the grasses and legumes are largely
restorative but may be earning crops as well. It must be remembered,
however, that their restorative effect lies wholly in their power to
mend structure and in adding the single element nitrogen to the soil.
Other plant food elements they never add but may, to some extent,
help to make them more available and thus permit larger yields to
follow them, but whose removal, when no return is made to the soil,
hastens its ultimate exhaustion.
Composition, first, and structure, second, are the master factors
which determine the productive capacity of fields. Let me close by
illustrating this through the practice of composting soils preparatory
to their use on the benches of forcing houses. With the practical man
his first choice is a rich sod, his second a rich mellow loam. To the
soil he adds from a third to a half its volume of good stable manure,
perhaps supplemented with phosphates, lim'e and potash. The whole
is thoroughly mixed, put in good moisture condition and given oppor-
tunity for fermentation under conditions of frequent turning. By this
treatment he secures a soil whose structure is ideal and which is at
the same time carrying a heavy charge of plant food in highly avail-
able form. A strong blue-grass or timothy sod is itself a guarantee
of thorough and strong crumb structure. Because the volume of the
soil is small it is imperative that the root system be brought in effec-
tive contact with the whole of it, that the available surface shall be
as large as possible and that the soil with which the roots come in
contact shall be heavily charged with essential plant food. The
decay of the manure in contact with the soil grains leads to their
becoming highly charged with plant food in water-soluble form.
Quite likely, too, at the time of planting, the manure and other sub-
stances will be supplemented by sodium nitrate.
It seems idle to think that soils like this, selected at the start
because they are in evident good condition and reasonably productive,
should require such excessive amounts of manure and fertilizers to
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 17
simply neutralize toxic principles which may be present in them, and
we may be reasonably certain that we are dealing simply with an
abundance of plant food in highly available form, placed under ideal
conditions for the crop to put itself in touch with it.
Chairman Manning: Shall we take up the discussion of Professor
King's paper?
Mr. Vaughan: We have so many papers, and the program is pos-
sibly going to be so long that we could better defer the discussion
until opportunity comes.
Chairman Manning : Is it the sense of the meeting that the
discussion of the papers be postponed to the end of the session?
Motion to postpone was carried.
PLANT PATHOLOGY.
A. F. WOODS, WASHINGTON, D. C.
Your secretary has asked me to review as far as possible in ten
or fifteen minutes our actual knowledge of plant diseases, the best
methods of combating them, the progress that has been made, together
with a suggestion or two as to some improvements that may be
expected in the future. I have accepted the invitation, knowing fully
that I could not in so short a time begin to cover so much ground
with a sufficient degree of thoroughness to give an adequate idea even
of the most important bearings of pathology on horticulture, but I
concluded that the committee must have had in mind that I would
use their request as an illustration of the greatest failing, not only in
pathological investigation but in the application of methods recom-
mended for the control of diseases, namely, too much haste and lack
of thoroughness. These are failings incident to work in a new coun-
try under great pressure, where the field is large and the workers few.
There has been a good measure of economic justification for the mis-
takes of the past, and they are teaching us valuable lessons for our
guidance in the future. What we need now to do is to study care-
fully these successes and failures and determine as accurately as may
be possible their causes as a basis for improved practice. The old
conditions are rapidly changing. The new times require more careful
and intensive methods.
One-crop farming, too short and unwise crop rotations, improper
methods of fertilizing and culture, with destruction of humus and the
life and fertility of the soil, careless methods of propagation and seed
selection, the use of varieties not adapted to soil and climate, or other
limiting conditions, are responsible for loss from diseases in a larger
degree than is realized. An orange, a plum, or peach or apple or any
other tree or shrub, whose cambium responds to a few warm days in
winter or early spring, is not a safe variety to plant in localities
where such warm periods occur. Plants of northern range, accus'
tomed to respond to lower initial heat stimulus, are thus subject tc
18 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
winter injury in more southern latitudes. On the other hand, plants
of southern range planted north start later, are less subject to late
frosts, but may be injured by early frosts. These cold injuries are
often hardly noticeable, but they are sufficient to weaken the plant and
open the way for trunk cankers and numerous other parasitic diseases
which the trees could otherwise resist.
A soil slightly too acid or alkaline for a particular variety, though
not enough to prevent growth, may nevertheless weaken the root
system and, in fact, the whole plant, making it subject to serious dis-
ease. So also the moisture or temperature fluctuations of the soil and
its aeration may be unfavorable to a particular variety, making it less
resistant to disease, if not actually causing a pathological condition in
itself. Too little attention has been given to these factors by the
farmers and horticulturists as well as by the pathologists.
An important duty in this new century will be to develop a better
appreciation and more accurate understanding of the relation of these
factors to health and disease. The cropping system of a farm or
orchard, the planting of a nursery or a park to be satisfactory and
successful in securing healthy growth must be undertaken only after
a careful consideration of all these factors involved. Like the archi-
tect, the horticulturist and the farmer must have a carefully thought-
out plan and as nearly as possible see the end from the beginning.
RESISTANCE AND IMMUNITY.
Our ideal, of course, is to cultivate plants that can in the largest
measure consistent with other requirements fight their own battles.
Observation and experience have given us a large amount of informa-
tion on adaptability to conditions and resistance to disease, which
remains to be classified and digested in order to be made generally
available. We often neglect to reap the benefits of a destructive
drouth, a cold wave, an epidemic of disease, or the failure of a crop,
fry neglecting to study and save what is left. The few straggling plants
left do not appeal to the average man. He plows them up or turns
in the hogs. But the man familiar with Nature's methods sees in these
survivors resistant strains and saves the few straggling plants for seed,
with the hope that the few survivors may have some peculiarity trans-
mittable to progeny, making them resistant to the factor that caused
the general destruction of the crop. In this way originated the wilt-
resistant cotton, wilt-resistant cowpeas and flax, and cowpeas and to-
bacco resistant to nematode or root-knot. Strains of red clover resis-
tant to anthracnose (a disease which in many sections of the South
makes it impossible to grow ordinary non-resistant clover) were also
originated in this way. Strains of corn, oats, wheat, rye, clover,
alfalfa, sugar beets, and other grains, forage plants, and vegetables
resistant to cold, alkali and drouth have been developed from such
selections, in some cases made purposely by subjecting the crop to
these conditions, in others by simply taking advantage of what occurred
naturally. In some of the older and more thickly populated parts of
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 19
the world necessity has forced the saving of the last straw. This is
why we find the drouth-resistant durum wheats in the- dry regions of
Russia and Asia and around the Mediterranean, the alkali and drouth-
resistant alfalfas and other forage crops in the same regions, a cold-
resistant alfalfa in Siberia and northern Manchuria, the cold-resistant
winter wheats of Russia, and other crops too numerous to mention.
Hundreds of years of culture and selection, forced by poverty and
necessity under forbidding conditions of cold and drouth and disease,
have made those sections veritable storehouses of good things, but
what nature and necessity have not produced for us we can in large
measure do for ourselves. We can combine the cold-resisting quality
of the trifoliate inedible orange with the fruit qualities of the tender
sweet orange; the disease-resistant quality of the citron with the fruit
quality of the edible melons ; the rust-resistant quality of the durum
wheat with the berry of the Blue Stem; the cold-resistant quality of
the wild crab with the fruit of our finer apples. The possibilities of
such composite breeding have scarcely been touched or appreciated.
In such work many factors must be taken into account and great care
and foresight exercised.
PATHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION.
Coming now to the scientific study of plant diseases, there is almost
unlimited room for improvement. Compared with what there is still
to discover, our knowledge of most diseases is still meager and one-
sided. The brain of the pathologist is his most important instrument
in such investigation. It must be trained to work with precision in all
of the various directions and fields involved in such study. This is not
now generally the case, and our colleges must be awakened to their
duty. To most successfully combat a disease, we should know the
causes that contribute to it and as much about the causes as possible.
We should understand the pathological reaction of the diseased plant.
Only in this way shall we be able to remoye the causes or protect the
plant against them or assist it to recover.
SPRAYING.
In the cases of disease due to attack of parasitic organisms, we
are often able to protect our crops by spraying. Spraying, like a coat
of mail, is a protection against entrance to the tissues by invading
organisms. If there are any holes in the coat of mail or if it is made
of poor material or is put on after the arrow has pierced the flesh,
it may be of no avail. Much of our spraying has holes in it. The
tissues are not properly coated during the periods of attack. Much
of the new growth is left unprotected during the critical period. The
parasite gets in through these places, and we find too late that hasty,
careless spraying is of little value.
Improperly made mixtures or mixtures made of poor materials
are often no protection and may be as injurious as the disease. Even
good Bordeaux mixture can not safely be used on some plants, like
20 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
peaches, and in some seasons is slightly injurious to apples. The
apparatus for spraying is as a rule poorly constructed, clumsy, and in
great need of general improvement and adaptation to particular condi-
tions. Demand good machinery and pay for it. It is essential to suc-
cess. Those who know these things must teach, by demonstration,
those who know imperfectly or do not know at all. Literature is
valuable as an aid to demonstration teaching but can never take the
place of it. Too much dependence on literature is one of our great
educational mistakes. Send out fewer bulletins and more men.
Briefly, then, we shall improve on the pathology of the last century
if we take time to be careful and thorough. Study the causes of failure
and profit by the results. Demand better-trained minds and improved
apparatus, and depend in our teaching more upon men and less upon
books.
INSECT ENEMIES.
A. L. QUAINTANCE, WASHINGTON, D. C.
The protection of crops from insect injuries is one of the impor-
tant cultural problems. There is scarcely a wild or cultivated plant
but which furnishes food for a score or more of insects, and the num-
ber of species which may attack a given crop in many instances runs
up into the hundreds. Thus in the United States the apple furnishes
food directly or indirectly to some 280 different kinds of insects; the
grape upwards of 200, and about the same number has been recorded
as attacking the peach. Corn is fed upon by at least 50 fairly important
destructive insects, and wheat and oats together by perhaps twice that
number. Clover furnishes food for somewhat more than 80 species,
while so new a crop as the sugar beet is attacked by at least 70 different
insect pests.
Not all of these insects are injurious every year, but any one of the
species which at present may be comparatively unimportant is liable at
any time, under changed con'ditions of environment, to become seriously
destructive ; as witness the outbreak the past spring in the grain fields
of the middle west of the so-called "green bug," a species of plant
louse; that of the pea louse a few years ago in Maryland and Dela-
ware; and the pear thrips, which at the present time is doing great
injury to the deciduous fruit interests in portions of California. These
two latter species were quite unknown to science previous to their
appearance in such destructive numbers. There are, however, a con-
siderable number of species that vary comparatively little from year
to year, chronic pests, so to speak, that may confidently be counted
on to put in appearance at their stated times, and these are responsible
for our principal insect losses.
LOSSES FROM INJURIOUS INSECTS IN THE UNITED STATES.
The actual damage inflicted by insects to crops is very difficult to
estimate, but attempts have been made from time to time to express in
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 21
terms of dollars and cents the annual shrinkage in value throughout
the United States from insect attack. By reason of the enormous
value of the annual production of the farm and forest a very small
percentage of loss from insect injuries gives, in the aggregate, figures
that at first thought might seem extravagant. Agricultural statistics
for 1889 and subsequent years indicate an annual value of farm pro-
ducts of about $5,000,000,000. To those who have followed the destruc-
tive work of insects from, year to year to produce of the orchard, farm,
and garden, in the field and stored, and to live stock, a shrinkage in
value on account of insect injury, for the country as a whole, of 10
per cent will, I believe, appear conservative. In fact this percentage
of loss will more often be exceeded than otherwise, as illustrated by
the ravages of orchards by the San Jose scale; the apple crop by the
codling moth ; peaches, plums, and apples by the curculio ; grain crops
by the Hessian fly, joint worms, the chinch bug and grasshoppers;
cotton by the boll weevil and boll worm, and the losses to live stock
through the agency of the cattle tick, the transmitter of the serious
malady of cattle known as Texas fever. A 10 per cent shrinkage in
value of the total farm production means a loss of $500,000,000, and
to this must be added losses to forests and lumber and to forage crops,
stored grain, and miscellaneous products, which on a similar conserva-
tive basis amounts to $200,000,000. We therefore have as the approx-
imate annual loss by insects in the United States the enormous sum of
$700,000,000, an amount which exceeds the entire annual expenditure
of the National Government.
ECONOMIC STATUS OF INSECTS AS A CLASS.
But it should not be understood that all insects are destroyers of
crops. Broadly speaking, insects are good or bad as they favor or
interfere with man's interests. There is a popular misconception in
the minds of a great many that insects as a class are decidedly injuri-
ous. As a matter of fact this is far from being the case. The class
Insecta, in point of species, comprises about four-fifths of all
animals, and the number of species which is thought to exist has been
variously estimated at from one to ten million. Of this enormous
number not more than 400,000 have as yet been actually described and
named. From North America are recorded only some 40,000 species,
and of these perhaps not more than 1,000 or 1,200 ought to be regarded
as injurious. The great proportion of our insect fauna feed upon plants
of no special economic importance, as on wild plants, weeds, etc. A
large number feed upon animal substances, including those which are
parasitic and predaceous upon other insects. In respect to their rela-
tions to man's interest as a class, insects have been grouped as follows :*
* Economic Status of Insects as a Class, by L. O. Howard, Science,
n. s. Vol. IX, p. 233.
22 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
Insects are injurious:
(1) As destroyers of crops and other valuable plant life.
(2) As destroyers of stored foods, dwellings, clothes, books, etc.
(3) As injuring live stock and other useful animals.
(4) As annoying man.
(5) As carriers of disease.
Insects are beneficial :
(1) As destroyers of injurious insects.
(2) As destroyers of noxious plants.
(3) As pollinizers of plants.
(4) As scavengers.
(5) As makers of soil.
(6) As food (for man and poultry, song birds and food fishes)
and as clothing and as used in the arts.
Thus insects are about equally divided as to their injurious and
beneficial characters. Their injuries to farm and forest products and
their role in the transmission of diseases in man and live stock doubt-
less include the principal losses which they occasion. Notwithstanding
the enormous destruction of useful products caused each year by
insects their injuries are largely offset by the assistance which the
beneficial forms render in the destruction of noxious species and in
the pollination of plants. The beneficial influence of insects in these
ways is but little understood by the public in general. It is perhaps
not too mu h to say that our very existence depends on these friendly
insects which insure our crops by effecting the fertilization of plants
and keeping down injurious species.
In nature, insect and plant species have gradually evolved together,
and there has come about a very complex though well balanced rela-
tionship between the plants and insects, and between the insects them-
selves. The destruction of the native plants of the prairie and forest
and the planting of cultivated plants has quite changed the natural
conditions surrounding our native insects, and they have been forced,
or from preference have attacked the succulent cultivated crops and by
reason of its great abundance individuals of a species are able to de-
velop in enormous numbers. While we have numerous native species
of first-class importance, as the peach borer, potato beetle, etc., the
considerable majority of our worst insect pests have come to us, at
various times, from other countries. In practically all instances, these
introductions have here become more destructive than in their native
homes, for reasons not always explainable, but in numerous instances
from the fact that their insect enemies which at home serve to keep
them reduced have not been brought over with them. The idea was
early suggested that the native country of a given imported species be
determined, and its natural enemies be introduced to prey upon it.
It is a pleasing proposition to thus array the forces of nature against
each other, but that it should uniformly be successful involves a good
deal more than is at first apparent.
Important as are these, and other natural agencies, as rains, wind-
storms, forest fires, heat and drouth, in the destruction of noxious in-
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 23
sects, it is nevertheless necessary for man to supplement their work
by the use of insecticidal substances. The applied science of economic
entomology had its foundation in this necessity.
It would be of interest, did time permit, to briefly outline the
development of economic entomology in America, as constituting a
most interesting chapter in the history of our phenomenal agricultural
growth. Insect problems of national importance have, one after another,
presented themselves for solution, and a knowledge of methods of
insect control has become more and more necessary in agricultural
and horticultural operations. At the present time in the United States
and Canada, some 150 persons are devoting their time, in whole or in
part, to the scientific study of injurious insects, and this number would
perhaps be doubled, if account be taken of those engaged in the
enforcement of crop-pest laws. Some $300,000 are annually spent in
work pertaining to destructive insects, not including emergency appro-
priations by the Federal Government, as for the cotton boll weevil, the
gypsy moth, the eradication of the cattle tick, etc.
Neglecting, however, this phase of the subject, attention will be
called to some of the methods, and their efficiency, at present employed
in reducing insect injuries.
Broadly speaking, our present battery for insect warfare is about
as follows :
(1) Various poisons, as Paris green, ar.senate of lead, hellebore,
etc., for biting insects, which are sprayed or dusted on their
food plants.
(2) Various caustic, soapy and penetrating sprays, as lime sulphur
wash, whale oil soap, kerosene and crude petroleum emul-
sions, etc. These are more especially for sucking insects,
and destroy them by corroding or penetrating their bodies,
or by stopping up their breathing pores.
(3) Poisonous gases, so used as to poison the air breathed by
insects, as hydrocyanic acid gas, carbon bisulphide, and sul-
phur dioxide.
(4) The utilization of parasitic and predaceous insects, and para-
sitic fungous and bacterial diseases.
(5) Cultural methods, as timely planting, cultivation, fertilization,
fall plowing, rotation, pruning, etc.
(6) The employment of plants or parts of plants more or less
resistant to insect attack, as for grafting stock.
(7) Mechanical methods, as worming for borers, jarring for cur-
culio, etc.
(8) Legislation, to prevent the introduction and dissemination of
noxious species.
Spraying. — The first two mentioned classes of insecticides, namely
food poisons and contact remedies, are used mostly as sprays, and
spraying without doubt is our most effective way of controlling insects.
It is especially valuable for the orchardist, and for the grower of small
fruits and truck crops. Of field crops, potatoes, tobacco and cotton are
24 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS 'OF HORTICULTURE
profitably treated, but for most staple crops other methods must be
employed.
The process involves numerous special features as applied to differ-
ent insects and crops, but the object in all cases is to thoroughly dis-
tribute the insecticide over the plants. Spraying low growing plants,
as, potatoes and truck crops, is largely mechanical, and requires no
comment. In the treatment of orchards, spraying finds its greatest
development, and correct spraying is really an art. The thoroughness
of the work and consequent results, will depend on the ideas and experi-
ence of the man using the nozzle rods. While there is an increasing
adoption of spraying among fruit growers, there has not been corre-
sponding improvement in regard to thoroughness in the work. Dor-
mant tree spraying of deciduous fruits as opposed to applications during
the growing season, is well illustrated in the use of lime sulphur wash
against the San Jose scale.
In this case a very strong wash is used, which would be quite
unsafe after the foliage has appeared. Its caustic action destroys the
San Jose scale, and numerous other insects which may coexist on the
trees, such as other scale pests, pear leaf blister mite, eggs of aphids,
larvae of the peach moth, etc. The wash is also most useful as a
fungicide, and is practically a specific for peach leaf curl. Its increased
use in the control of the scale on peaches, has greatly lessened curl leaf,
giving the industry a stability it did not previously possess.
Spraying during the growing season is best illustrated in the case
of the apple, and is restricted in the East largely to the use of an
arsenical as Paris green or arsenate of lead in Bordeaux mixture,
effecting a combination treatment for insects and diseases. A schedule
of applications has been determined for various parts of the country,
based on an accurate knowledge of the trouble to be controlled, afford-
ing almost complete protection from such insects as the codling moth,
curculio, green fruit worms, canker worms, and among diseases, the
scab, bitter rot, fruit blotch, leaf spot, etc. The spraying of apples is
more highly specialized than is the case of other fruits and no crop
perhaps shows a greater percentage of benefit.
In the above remarks liquid sprays entirely have been meant.
Rather recently the so-called dust spray has come into more or less
of use, especially in portions of the middle west, and considerable
difference of opinion has arisen as to the relative merits of the two
methods. If effective, dust spraying has much to recommend it as not
requiring the use of water and the lightness of the outfit permits its
use on steep and hilly ground.
A less fortunate condition exists in regard to summer spraying of
stone fruits, especially the peach. Even neutral arsenical sprays, such
as arsenate of lead, are likely to cause serious shot holing and drop-
ping of the leaves, and scalding of the fruit, while more caustic arseni-
cals, as Paris green, may actually kill the twigs and limbs. The control
of the curculio on peach, to which it is a very serious enemy, could
readily be accomplished, were a safe arsenical available. At the present
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 25
time no suitable insecticide is known for use on the peach during the
growing season.
Fumigation. — The destruction of insects by poisoning the air which
they breathe is practicable with several classes of pests, and has the
decided advantage over other methods of complete extermination. An
indispensable condition is that the object to be treated must be in an
air tight inclosure. Principally three fumigants are used, namely hydro-
cyanic acid gas, carbon bisulphide and sulphur dioxide. Fumigation with
hydrocyanic acid gas has become the standard treatment for nursery
stock, greenhouse plants, flour mills, warehouses, private dwellings,
etc. Gassing is also largely practiced in California in the control of
insects On citrus trees, and to a limited extent in Florida for the orange
white fly. A few years ago, the practicability of fumigating deciduous
fruit trees in the East for the San Jose scale was thoroughly tested in
Maryland, New York and Illinois, but the practice was never adopted
to any extent.
Carbon bisulphide finds its greatest usefulness as an insecticide
for destroying insects in stored grain and cereal products. It is con-
venient to use and very effective. This substance is also employed in
the destruction of root inhabiting insects as the wooly apple aphis, cab-
bage root maggots and still to a limited extent against the phylloxera
in France, where at one time it was a very important remedy for this
pest.
Sulphur dioxide, or sulphur fumes, has long been in use for the
destruction in rooms or dwellings of certain insect pests, but the bleach-
ing effect of the gas in the presence of moisture has made it much less
popular than the above two fumigants. Sulphur fumes are further
very destructive to plants, as witness the injury to vegetation in the
vicinity of smelting works. Nevertheless, sulphur dioxide will be more
or less useful in special cases. Thus it has been adopted by the North
German Lloyd Steamship Company, for the extermination in vessels of
insects, in grain, of rats and other vermin.
PARASITIC AND PREDACEOUS INSECTS, AND FUNGOUS DISEASES.
Introduced insect pests are almost invariably much more destruc-
tive here than in their original home, supposedly on account of the
influence of natural agencies which there operate to keep them reduced.
It is one of the resources of economic entomology to import from the
original home of an introduced pest any enemies which it may have,,
in the hope of bringing about its control. This sort of work had its
greatest inspiration in the notably successful importation from Australia
into California of the Vedalia to prey upon the cottony cushion scale
which threatened to destroy the citrus industry of that state. This
markedly successful instance of controlling a pest by one of its natural
enemies led to much effort of a similar character. Many importations
of predatory and parasitic species have been made, some with fair
success, but on the whole without marked effect on the abundance of
the injurious species. The introduction from China, the nativity of the,
26 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
San Jose scale, of a lady-bird beetle which there keeps the scale in
check is familiar to most of you. While the lady-bird thrived for a
while in its new home, it became itself the object of attack from
other predatory insects, and the absence of suitable scale food, due to
the general spraying of orchards, where it had been introduced, led to
its extinction, except perhaps in one or two localities in the South. At
the present time large importations into Massachusetts from Europe
are being made of enemies of the gypsy and brown tail moth, but the
outcome of the work cannot yet be indicated. In a few instances
insects have been found to be quite susceptible to bacterial or fungous
diseases, and attempts have been made to propagate and disseminate
these to secure their destruction. Notable instances are the use of the
so-called "Muscardine" fungus years ago in the middle west against
the chinch bug; the more recent use in Florida of the fungus Sphaero-
stilbe against the San Jose scale, and the work at the present time in
the same state with the Aschersoriia diseases of the orange white fly.
Cultural Methods. — Numerous methods may be practiced for avoid-
ing insect injuries by the farmer and fruit grower, which involve no
outlay in time and labor not essential to proper crop culture, such as
clean culture and fall plowing where practicable, the early destruction
of crop remnants, the use of fertilizers to keep plants in vigorous and
healthy condition, crop rotation, and in orchards prompt removal of
diseased and dying limbs and trees, etc. Indeed in the case of staple
crops, such operations are about all that may be done.
Winter wheat is largely protected from the fall swarm of the Hes-
sian fly by delaying seeding in the fall until the insects have made their
appearance, and died without ovipositing. Injury from the cotton boll
weevil is best avoided by planting the crop as early in the spring as
possible, and forcing a quick production, by chopping the plants out
wide in the rows, the liberal use of fertilizers, and frequent cultiva-
tion. In this way, a profitable crop of cotton may be insured before
the weevils are sufficiently abundant as to destroy the squares as fast
as they are produced. The early picking of the crop and destruction of
the plants in the fall and before the beetles go into hibernation destroys
them in enormous numbers, as they feed only on cotton. The cultiva-
tion of vineyards in the spring as the shoots are pushing out, largely
destroys the soft helpless pupae of the grape root worm then near the
surface of the ground. Similarly the plum curculio may be reduced to
an important extent by cultivation of orchards during a period of a
month, beginning about six weeks after blooming. Liberal use of fer-
tilizers will often enable plants to outgrow insect attack. This is well
illustrated in the case of the black peach aphis; in Michigan, where
the pest is quite troublesome, trees suffering from aphis attack are
readily brought out by liberal use of stable manure. Many similar
instances might be cited. In the use of cultural methods it should be
borne in mind that the work must be done advisedly as in the case of
spraying and with special reference to the particular insects to be con-
trolled.
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 27
Resistant Varieties. — Entomologists' have given but little attention
to the selecting or breeding of varieties of plants, resistant or unpal-
atable to insects. A few examples may be cited as indicating possibili-
ties along such lines of work. The solution of the grape phylloxera
problem of France and California has come about by the use for graft-
ing stock for the European grape of the roots of American vines.
Numerous observers have commented on the relative freedom from the
woolly apple aphis of apple trees grafted on roots of the Northern Spy,
and certain other varieties. Doctor Webber found that one of his citrus
creations, the Drake star orange, was resistant to the Phyptoptus rust
of the orange. Orton has found that a variety of cow pea, the "Iron,"
is immune to attack from the so-called root knot, a nematode affection
of the peach and many other plants, especially troublesome in the light
sandy soils of the South. The comparative immunity from attack by
the San Jose scale of Kieffer and Le Conte pears, the quince and sour
cherry, is unique in view of the almost omniverous habits of this insect,
and the determination of the reason might be of practical value. Cer-
tain strains of plums, especially the Americana group, are but little
injured by the plum curculio, and varieties of apples vary considerably
in regard to susceptibility to codling moth injury. This practically
untrodden field should receive more attention from entomologists.
Mechanical Methods. — Only brief reference is required to what may
be termed mechanical methods in fighting insects. Under this caption
may be included such practices as worming for borers, jarring for
the plum curculio, destroying insects by hand picking, etc. In general
such methods are resorted to because no better plan is available. Some
first-class pests at present must be treated in these ways, though future
discoveries may afford more practicable treatment.
Legislation. — The advent into the East of the San Jose scale was
the primary cause of the adoption by many states of laws designed to
prevent its distribution on nursery stock and secure its eradication or
control where established in orchards. Numerous other insect and
fungous pests were brought under the operation of the laws, and on the
whole the legislation has been productive of great good. That it should
uniformly secure the results desired was perhaps more than should
be expected. A recent census of insect legislation in the United States
shows that only eleven out of the forty-eight states and territories
are yet without crop pest laws, and some of these will present bills for
enactment shortly. Thirty different insect species are specified as nox-
ious pests, and provision in many laws is made for the designation of
other insects when deemed expedient. The San Jose scale is the only
species mentioned common to all laws, which well illustrates the diver-
sity of requirements of the various states. For some years, represen-
tatives of the National Nurserymen's Association and of the Official
Horticultural Inspectors have endeavored to devise a more uniform
system of certification of nursery stock for interstate shipments which
is greatly to be desired. So far however, no arrangement has thus far
apparently been effected. The establishment of a quarantine and inspec-
28 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
tion system by the National Government of all plants brought in from
abroad has been more or less agitated recently, and the wisdom of such
action cannot be questioned. The State of California has maintained
such quarantine for many years, and has no doubt kept out many unde-
sirable insect immigrants.
In conclusion, the speaker would say, that while our battery for
insect warfare may appear somewhat formidable, he believes that it
will steadily improve in the future. Our present losses from insect
attack must be greatly reduced and this will result from a more detailed
knowledge of the insects themselves throughout their range of distri-
bution, and a general adoption by those interested, of the recommenda-
tions which have proven to be of value.
VEGETABLE BREEDING.
W. VAN FLEET, LITTLE SILVER, N. J.
The breeding of vegetables doubtless began when primitive man
ceased wholly to rely on the wild products of nature. The dawning
intelligence that made the beginnings of plant culture would soon lead
to discrimination in varieties and the perpetuation by various propaga-
tive means of the better rather than the inferior types of herbs, roots
and seeds found desirable for his use. Thus in all probability was
born selection — the most powerful of all forces in the modification of
vegetable life by man. So potent and far reaching is selection con-
sistently carried through successive generations, and so widely do
modern cultivated forms differ from the original stocks, that the major-
ity of vegetables of the present day cannot with reasonable certainty
be traced back to their primitive species. The experiments of Vilmorin
showed that an edible root similar to the Student parsnip of modern
gardens could be evolved in less than five generations of critical selec-
tion from the common, semi-poisonous wild European parsnip, so we
may imagine the profound influence of continuous selection, running
back to far prehistoric ages, on the plants used as culinary vegetables.
What family of plants first claimed the attention of primitive man we
cannot with certainty know, but from the shadowy evidence of ancient
remains it would appear that beans, peas and related legumes were
among the earliest cultivated vegetables. Potent from the very outset,
notwithstanding the desultory manner it may have been practiced,
varietal selection yet remains the most certain and powerful method
of moulding vegetable life to meet the needs or fancies of man. It is
the truest form of breeding, the genuine pedigree work, by which we
have slowly climbed toward the goal of vegetable perfection. Violent
climatic changes, distant removals, intense fertilization and the little
known forces of mutation or bud variation have all had their influ-
ences, but they are small indeed compared to that of continued selec-
tion. Modification by intentional hybridization or cross-pollination,
though a powerful means of adding new characteristics, is of such re-
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 29
cent practice, beginning in fact almost with the closing years of the
last century, that it has made but limited impression on vegetable types.
The present standard varieties are with few exceptions the outcome of
selection alone. Hybridization, coupled with the all-necessary selec-
tion, is likely to have an increasing share in future vegetable breeding.
Following is a brief resume of the principal modern vegetables with
reference to the general manner of their production.
Asparagus. — The cultivated varieties of asparagus all appear to
have been developed by age-long selection from the common European
species, A. officinalis. A few modern kinds are claimed to be cross-
bred, but whether intentionally so, we are not informed. Asparagus,
being largely dioecious in blooming habit, is readily cross-fertilized
when two or more varieties are grown in near vicinity. A Massachus-
etts society has undertaken breeding experiments with asparagus both
on the lines of pure selection and well considered crossing, with the
hope of producing varieties more resistant to rust than those now
cultivated.
Beets. — Modern garden beets are admirable examples of critical
selection for untold generations of culture. Certain varieties leave
little to be desired in elegance of form, coloring or quality. The present
effort appears to be toward uniformity of type rather than refinements
of the above mentioned features. The use of beets for sugar produc-
tion has, however, led to wonderful development of forms suitable for
that important commercial purpose. The sugar content of the beet has
been more than doubled in less than forty years of concentrated breed-
ing work largely under government supervision. Selection of the best
sugar-producing individuals for successive generations has been the
all-powerful means, but cross-pollination is now beginning to play its
part. One of the important objects sought by the breeders of our
Department of Agriculture is the production of a reliable strain of
one-germ beet seeds in order to lessen the expense of thinning the
young plants. Everyone knows that ordinary beet "seeds" are merely
coherent multiple fruits, usually containing several true seeds, which
may germinate close together. The Department breeders employ both
selection and crossing in the furtherance of their work.
Cabbage and related Brassicas are without doubt bred almost
wholly by selection. Profound indeed have been the changes wrought
in developing our hard-heading cabbages, our cauliflowers, Brussels
sprouts, kales and even Kohl-rabis from the loose-tufted wild cabbage
of Britain. Varieties cross with some freedom when planted near-by
and useful variations may have arisen in that manner, but the tendency
is carefully to segregate seed plantings so as to reduce natural crossing
to the minimum. The writer has made crosses between green-leaved
and highfy glaucous cabbage varieties with the production of offspring
having leaves of intermediate coloring, but retaining the heading char-
acteristics of both parents in different individuals. Prolonged attempts
to hybridize Chinese cabbage species, Brassica Petsai and B. Chinensis,
with garden cabbages entirely failed. Apparently distinct species of
cruciferous genera are not easy to cross. We have European reports
30 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
of successful crosses between the hairy leaved turnips and the ruta-
baga, but none appears to have risen to commercial importance.
Celery. — Appears wholly a product of evolution by selection. The
present tendencies on one hand are to breed for early maturity and
quick bleaching and on the other to seek in the deep-green leaved
varieties good keeping quality and resistance to bacterial disease.
Cucumbers and Melons. — Intentional as well as natural crossing
plays an important part in the development of these popular vine fruits.
Most strains of forcing or glasshouse cucumbers are the results of
crossing our white spine variety with the long smooth cucumbers so
extensively grown abroad. In these dilute variety-hybrids the white
spine type of fruit prevails, but the vigor of plant of the European
kinds is retained. Glasshouse melons appear to an even greater extent
to be the direct results of crossing. In most instances records of par-
entage are preserved, as being of commercial importance. Among
outdoor varieties hand-made crosses are less in evidence, the seed
grower practicing careful selection and isolation of varieties to main-
tain purity of type, but crossing is so readily affected by natural agencies
that most distinct varieties probably originated in that manner, to be
later perpetuated by selection.
Table Corns. — Are cross-bred with comparative ease and certainty.
Three years of selection will usually fix a desirable cross sufficiently for
dissemination. Many successful crosses have been made for purely
local uses. By far the greatest interest in corn breeding lies in the
vast efforts being made by experiment stations, societies and indi-
viduals to increase productiveness and develop special characteristics in
field corn varieties.
Lettuce. — Has hitherto been developed by selection and wonderful
variations have been produced. The U. S. Department of Agriculture,
however, announces that a successful cross has been made between the
loose-leaved Grand Rapids type and a large heading variety, like Big
Boston, probably the first intentional cross-breeding achieved in this
important salad vegetable.
The Onion. — Is one of the most ancient and widely dispersed of
aromatic vegetables. Various species of Allium are cultivated in differ-
ent parts of the world and it would appear that fair opportunities for
methodical hybridization exist. Attempts to intercross varieties of A.
cepa, the garden onion, with A. Porrum, the leek, and A. fistulosum,
the Welsh onion, in the hands of the writer completely failed. The
crossing of Prizetaker, a large Mediterranean variety of garden onion,
with Red Wethersfield resulted in attractive intermediate offspring
that reproduced quite true from seed.
Peas and Beans. — Are constantly subject to the most careful se-
lection, yet a considerable number of the most prized varieties, espe-
cially among peas, are products of intentional crossing. Beans are
rather difficult subjects to artificially pollinate, yet successful hybrids
between the Lima and garden pole bean, belonging to fairly diverse
species, have been made by more than one breeder. Investigations
show that these garden legumes, while popularly supposed to be self-
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 31
pollinating, as the anthers mature in the bud, are quite subject to nat-
ural crossing by the agency of minute pollen-bearing insects that enter
immature blooms.
The Pepper. — Is a very neat subject for crossing and useful varie-
ties may be produced with tolerable precision. It appears development
by pure hereditary selection has played a smaller part with the pepper
than with most vegetables.
The Potato. — As the most important vegetable propagated by di-
vision, has a different status from its congeners. New varieties are
produced by selection among seedlings grown mostly from chance or
self pollinated seeds. It appears certain that intentional crossing or
hybridization has played a minor role in the development of potato
varieties. The breeding of the potato is more ardently pursued at the
present time than that of any other vegetable yet few experimenters
are willing to claim they have actually produced crosses or hybrids.
Every available species of tuber-bearing Solanum is apparently being
used by breeders in different countries in the hope of imparting vigor
to the cross-bred progeny. The paucity of results, up to date, is quite
remarkable, and appears to indicate that for practical results we must
return to the old plan of growing seedlings in quantity from the best
available varieties. This, in view of the progressive sterility of our
best commercial varieties, is becoming an increasingly difficult matter.
Tomatoes. — The tomato is such a modern addition to our list of
really important vegetables, that its development from an ornamental
curiosity to the most widely grown and valued of garden fruits lies
almost within the memory of living men. Selection, as usual, was the
potent and comparatively rapid means of changing the original small,
flabby and seedy fruits to the large, solid and shapely tomatoes of to-
day, but critical crossing has within the past 15 years become an im-
portant factor in the production of superior varieties. Many breeders
find the tomato a fascinating and practical subject for their efforts. It
requires four or five years of rigid selection to sufficiently fix a cross-
bred variety, if of markedly diverse parentage. There appears to be
a particular tendency toward reversion to primitive forms in the third
generation of cross-bred tomatoes. The classic development of the
Trophy tomato by 20 years of selection from the original cross of
primitive tomato or "love apple" with the angular garden tomato of
1850, made by Dr. Hand of Baltimore, Md., has never been equalled
and is not likely to be excelled by hurried modern introducers.
The practical vegetable breeding of the immediate future would
seem to lie rather in efforts to produce varieties resistant to current
diseases than in continual refinements of the edible portions. In-
creased vigor and resistance to germ infection appear to be of the
highest importance in many varieties. Substantial progress has been
made by varietal selection in opposing asparagus rust, potato blight
and corn smut. A reasonably blight-resistant melon is at the present
time most ardently desired. Many factors go to make up the complex
modern demands on vegetable growth. All are important, but vigor
and disease resistance are so in the highest degree.
32 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
THE BREEDING AND PROPAGATION OF FLORISTS'
FLOWERS.
W. N. RUDD, MORGAN PARK, ILL.
The coupling of these two subjects together seems eminently
proper, as the present situation — especially with regard to the carna-
tion— is that the breeders are yearly producing new and better varie-
ties, and the grower is just as rapidly destroying them by improper
methods of propagating and growing.
Perhaps a short summary of the extent, or better, the limitation,
of the writer's experience may be of use in estimating the value of any
ideas advanced in this paper. For some eighteen years I have been
actively engaged in growing cut flowers for market purposes, largely
carnations and chrysanthemums, and for the last thirteen years have
been interested in the breeding of carnations — with no very striking
success so far as the putting out of phenomenal new things is con-
cerned. The work has been conducted strictly from the commercial
standpoint and, like all work of this kind conducted from this stand-
point, has but little value in a scientific way. Questions of economy,
the saving of time, labor and greenhouse space compel the dropping
of any line so soon as it shall appear not to offer reasonable chances
for gain. We cannot study retrograde or degenerate movements.
Failures — that is, . undesirable types — are at once destroyed and re-
placed by what seems to give more chance of gain, and no proper study-
is, or can be made of the causes of the retrogression or degeneracy.
This same commercial pressure and desire to economize time, leads
us to keep incomplete records and lays us open to more than a sus-
picion of inaccuracy. General statements, summaries or conclusions,
no matter how positively put forth by us, are open to suspicion also,
because we have no true conception of what scientific accuracy means.
Many of us entirely fail to study the scientific work which has been
done, or is being done in breeding and heredity, while the best of us
can hardly lay claim to more than a superficial knowledge of it, gained
through digests, reviews and summaries.
On the other hand the scientific student of these matters is not
primarily concerned about the commercial value of his products, and
will preserve for careful study degenerate or sickly individuals which
the commercial breeder will promptly discard. Failures are failures,
simply, to the one, while to the other they are often subjects for care-
ful study as possibly containing the key to the cause. The one is con-
cerned solely with the value of the resulting individual, and has neither
the time, knowledge nor inclination to search deeply into the cause. To
the other, the cause is the main matter of interest, and the possible
commercial value of the result is a subordinate one. The commercial
breeder has a thorough knowledge of commercial values, and a highly
cultivated, almost instinctive selective sense for progressive or valu-
able traits. The scientific student is quite generally deficient in knowl-
edge of commercial values.
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 33
These conditions of wide variance between the two classes of men
as to knowledge, methods and aims will explain the state of mild con-
tempt frequently shown by each for the other. The commercial breeder
takes a tumble when he attempts to draw scientific conclusions from
his work, and the scientist is often left at the post when he ventures
to discuss or assign commercial values.
It is far from my intent to belittle the work of the scientist. He
has worked miracles and is doing so daily. What future work in the
close study of the breeding of plants will do, no man can say. It is
safe to believe, however, that many problems, the answers to which we
cannot even guess at present, will be solved. At the risk of being
called a Philistine, however, I am compelled to say that, so far as
regards the commercial breeder of florists' plants, the scientist, so
far as science has been assimilated, has done little more for him than
to enable him in certain cases to make a little shrewder guess. The
term scientific breeding, as applied to our subject, is a misnomer. The
breeding of florists' flowers remains today almost a pure art.
There are two principal recognized methods of breeding florists'
flowers, by selection to fix a type and by cross breeding. The two
methods are not so different as they might seem. Success in each de-
pends— barring occasional accident — on the same qualities in the oper-
ator. The cross may almost be considered a minor matter. It is the
fine, almost instinctive, power for the perception of minute variations,
both progressive and retrogressive, on which most largely depends suc-
cess, and the lack of it in either case means failure.
This same power of minute observation enables the cross breeder
to become acquainted, as it were, with his subjects, to learn their indi-
vidual potencies and combining powers and year by year, if he is
careful about introducing foreign blood, to predict more and more
closely the results of his crosses; and yet he will often be unable to
give to you or me any good and sufficient reason why he selects or
rejects, or why makes or avoids certain crosses, any more than the
painter can give you rule or reason for all the varying form or color
in his masterpiece.
Breeding and propagating in floriculture have widely varying ob-
jects. One is a process for producing (I had almost said creating)
new forms; the other is a process for increasing the number of indi-
viduals of one form. An attempt to discuss methods of propagation
is unnecessary.
Florists' plants that are propagated by seed do not generally de-
teriorate for long periods, as the seed is commonly grown by expert
specialists, carefully rogued and kept up to standard. In the plants
commonly propagated from cuttings, rapid deterioration is often no-
ticed. This is due to one or several of many causes. A poor cutting
may be taken from a good plant, or an apparently good cutting from
a starved, sickly or overfed plant. The cutting may be weakened by
too high a temperature in the propagating bed, or by having to sustain
itself too long without roots by reason of too low a temperature in the
sand, or by remaining too long after rooting without potting. At-
34 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
tacks of disease or improper growing, of course, hasten the deteriora-
tion of a variety but do not concern us at this time.
Granting that the mechanical part of the work is properly done,
the sand good and clean, watering and ventilation properly attended
to and soil and after culture all that can be asked, there is still deterio-
ration in many cases. A sickly or diseased plant gives its own warn-
ing, and only the most careless grower will take cuttings from it. By
far the most insidious danger lies in the strong vigorous plant produc-
ing fine blooms, but overfed. Here is the great danger and here, I
believe, lies the prime cause of deterioration, especially in the carnation.
A plant once overfed seems a changed individual and this changed
condition extends to its progeny by cuttings, to a great degree.
When we have taken cuttings from healthy plants in vigorous
growing condition, and which we know not to have been over stimu-
lated ; when we have given them perfect conditions and perfect care,
from cutting to flowering time and back again, year after year, there
will often be noted a steady decline in productiveness with a possible
retention of good health and vigor. We have failed to learn our les-
son of the breeder, we have selected with only one object in view and
have overlooked the difference in productiveness of our individual
plants. When we learn to scrutinize every cutting as to its quality,
and every plant from which a cutting is made, not only as to its
health and vigor, but also as to its flower producing qualities, and to
reject all but the very best, then will we hear less of the deterioration
of varieties.
In a word, success in breeding, success in propagating, in fact, suc-
cess in all floricultural operations is due to that quality by which some
writer has defined genius — an infinite capacity for taking pains.
CARNATION NOTES.
The following notes, though hardly proper to be included in the
reading of this paper, may be of some interest if subsequently printed.
It has been our custom to so time our crossing as to ripen seed
for March sowing. These seedlings have been planted in frames and
allowed to bloom in the open, those showing desirable qualities being
removed to the greenhouse for subsequent trial, the undesirable ones
being destroyed, and those not blooming before frost being disregarded,
experience having shown them to be generally worthless.
The first bloom has been from July 15th to August 8th, varying
in different years. The plants blooming earliest have been generally
singles and those double enough for commercial purposes but of med-
ium or small size, with very few of the over double or bursting form.
The early bloomers have quite generally been found the freest in bloom
through later trials. The bursters have increased in number later,
while the singles, though still showing, have not been so numerous. The
larger number of desirable varieties have flowered from two to four
weeks after the first bloom, and seldom have any been saved after
September 15th. A record of each cross has of course always been
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 35
kept, and for several seasons a brief record of each seedling blooming,
as regards doubleness and color. These records cover 2,170 separate
plants and during a season of confinement to the house were tabulated
and summarized in various ways. It should be noted that the records
did not cover the entire number of plants from any cross except in a
few cases, as sickly or plainly undesirable forms were at once pulled
up, and many had not bloomed when freezing weather came on. With
these exceptions the notes are believed to cover the ground reasonably
well, and to be fairly accurate. No distinction was made between those
bursting from over doubleness and those from malformation.
SINGLENESS OR DOUBLENESS.
733 individuals (one season's crosses) gave singles 161
Commercial doubles 361
Over double or bursters 211
1437 individuals gave singles 385
Commercial 706
Bursters 557
2170 individuals gave singles 546
Commercial 1067
Bursters 557
It will be noted that the sum of the singles and bursters approxi-
mates quite closely the total of the commercials.
The earlier crosses seemed to produce more singles and less burst-
ers. The crosses made December 10 to January 1 where plants were
at their best, before feeding commenced, produced very nearly an
equal number of singles and bursters, with the commercials showing
a slight increase over the sum of the other two. The late crosses
showed the bursters in excess of the singles and the early and late
crosses showed the sum of the singles and bursters in excess of the
commercials.
The above should not be considered as at all conclusive, as the
mid-season crosses were very much in excess in number of the early
and late ones.
Crosses of one female by various males and the reverse, when
there were 100 or more individuals, did not vary largely from the pro-
portions of the 2,170 individuals noted before.
COLOR.
A large number of tabulations were made and much care was
exercised in making them, but they all lead back to one conclusion,
that is: the color of the seedling is a matter depending entirely upon
the individual potency of the parents. The most potent parents as to
color were those which were the result of many generations of previous
breeding to color. Some reproduced their color better as males, others
as females, and others equally well in either case. Special search was
36 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
made for some indications that the theory that the male has the
greater influence on color was true. It is a positive fact that in these
2,170 crosses, the theory does not hold. I could get no tabulation, the
results of which would not be changed by the withdrawal of certain
male crosses and the substitution of certain other female or vice
versa. It is true that certain mongrel crosses did show a slight pre-
ponderance of the male color in the seedlings, but they were few in
number and the withdrawal of a very few crosses would have changed
the result to the other side.
Chairman Manning: I think we have time to give some discussion
to the papers that have been presented, and I presume it will be desir-
able to limit the period of each speaker to three or five minutes in or-
der that all who are interested may have something to say on the sub-
ject.
I will call upon Mr. Rawson, who I think has had some experience
in irrigation in New England, to open the discussion of Professor
King's paper.
Mr. Rawson : I do not know that I can say anything very bene-
ficial to you on the paper that you have asked me to discuss. I en-
joyed it very much and I know that we are speaking to-day to gentle-
men who represent not only the section here, but all parts of the
United States. Probably no representative gathering equal to this
one, ever came together before although we may not be so great in
number as we have been on other occasions.
The subject of irrigation is one in which I have been interested
for the last forty years, and probably I was one of the first irriga-
tors in the East. You all know that irrigation is very beneficial to
the growth of plants, because all plants contain from 70 to 90 per
cent moisture, and it is therefore the largest part of the plant, and for
that reason it is an article that must be supplied. It follows therefore,
that those of us who have irrigation plants and use them to any great
extent are the most successful ones in producing crops, not only in
the East, but in every other section of the country where irrigation has
been practiced. The subject of irrigation is in its infancy. There are
various ways of doing it ; there is sub-irrigation, but the irrigation
which we in the East practice is that of supplying in some way about
one inch of water to the surface of the soil once a week. That is equal
to the amount of the natural rainfall which is nearly fifty inches a
year, and if we can supply one inch of water per week to the soil, we
will get a good crop, no matter what we grow. I know that the cost
of irrigation plants in many sections of the country is equal to mo're
than the cost of the land which they irrigate, but as the land which
we cultivate is used as a machine and as the water which we supply
is nourishment to the plant, it seems to me the most important thing
for us to have is nourishment and for that reason we have expended
large amounts of capital amounting to $10,000, $25,000 and even $50,-
000 in some cases for irrigating plants and we get our money back very
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 37
quickly on the investment. I have known many cases where crops
would produce $2,000 and $2,500 per acre, where if we had not irri-
gated, the land would have yielded not more than $1,000. In these
cases we not only get our money back but we get good interest for all
years to come, and for that reason, the intensive farmers of the East
all have their irrigation plants and put them to practical use.
Chairman Manning: Dr. Galloway, may we ask you to say a
few words on this subject?
Dr. Galloway: It is not necessary to go into the details of this
paper, except possibly to emphasize the point that he strongly brought
out, namely, that the soil can no longer be considered a simple propo-
sition. If we go back in history we find now and then some individual
or set of individuals who claim that they have discovered the secret of
handling soils by some chemical process. Years ago it was the doc-
trine of the chemist that by chemical analysis we could determine the
needs of the soil. That has been discredited, and the point I wish to
make is that Professor King has pointed out that the soil is a great
laboratory wherein this work is being carried on and there is any one
of two, three or a half a dozen things to which we can attribute sue -
cess of crops, but we must look at the combination of things and
study the proposition from that standpoint.
Chairman Manning: I will call for a discussion of Dr. Woods'
paper on "Plant Diseases."
Professor Rane : I might say the subject was very broadly treated
and I am sure we are all interested. It seems to me all of the papers
we have heard this morning dovetail into each other very closely. The
more I listened to the subjects the more I was impressed with the
fact that after all the soil is one of the fundamentals of crop growth.
I have been in educational lines for a number of years, and I think
that if there is anything that I have been impressed with more than
anything else, it is that if we do not have much soil, there is no use
of anything else. The more you know about a soil the greater chances
there are of success. I am of the candid opinion that oftentimes many
of our diseases and many of our insect depredations are brought about
more from certain conditions of soil than any other thing. Take Mr.
Rawson's business about Boston and the other men that are in the
market gardening work. One of the first things is to make proper
soil for the particular crops they are endeavoring to grow. I have been
before their association every year and discussed with them various
subjects. I find those men are men of but comparatively little educa-
tion on the question of depredations. The most essential thing is
proper soil, then provide against the different depredations as a part
of the culture of the crop. I appreciate most highly all the work that
has been done along these lines, but I think we ought to emphasize
more and more the importance, as these papers have brought out, of
getting in the first place a proper soil, then get at the proper method of
handling it.
Professor Alwood : Dr. Woods said something in his paper that
I want to repeat, because I thought perhaps I have been a great sinner
38 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
in the line of many publications, little leaflets, bulletins and so on, and
I long ago came to the conclusion that what we needed was not so
many publications, but to train young men to do the work, and I
tried in a small way, a few men that came under my care. The govern-
ment is publishing vast quantities of literature, bulletins — we are bulle-
tined to death, while the stations are also publishing vast quantities of
bulletins, tons and trainloads of them every year, and yet they are not
training men enough to fill the places that are open for them. It now
seems to me that much of the time put upon bulletins and other
publications of the stations and by the government, most of which are
thrown away, had better be spent in teaching men to do things and
to go out into the fields and do things well and thus accomplish some-
thing, come in contact with the growers and show them how to do
some things well.
Mr. McNeill: In regard to that recommendation to publish fewer
bulletins, I would say- — don't do it. The bulletin is just as essential to
the success of all these movements as the men. As a matter of fact,
the bulletin is the pioneer.
Until you can make a thing familiar to the people, and to the gen-
eral public by printed matter, your men's time is largely wasted. The
training of men is an expensive operation. Good men are rare articles.
There are only a few of them and we have got to take care of them
very carefully. Do not publish fewer bulletins but rather train more
men, and support those colleges more liberally that are training men
in a first-class manner. The McDonald College in our own country and
a thousand and one of that sort here in the States, are all practical
sources of help.
Mr. Quaintance : In Mr. Woods' paper he spoke of our men going
into the fields with the growers. I wish to emphasize that, and I think
there is need at the present time for more experienced men to go into
the field and gardens and actually show and demonstrate what they
are teaching.
Mr. Robinson: I want to supplement a remark by Professor Al-
wood. In Albemarle County, Virginia, we had read bulletins and liter-
ature of all kinds and with very little result. More was done by Mr.
Scott of the Department of Agriculture, whom Professor Alwood
trained, coming there and by illustrating orchard work, teaching how
to combat codling moth, bitter rot, etc., than by all the bulletins put
together that ever came into that county, and I have half a ton of
them.
Mr. McNeill: If it had not been for the John the Baptist of the
Bulletin, you never would have got the Savior. You would still be
crying in the wilderness.
Dr. Galloway: In regard to the question of plant diseases, I would
like to call attention to what has been said that bore pretty hard on the
soil, and the inference might be drawn that if you take any kind of
soil and put plenty of moisture with it, a crop can be grown. I hold
that something else must be put with the soil and that is gray matter.
Unless you have the right kind of brain matter, the soil is not worth
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 39
very much. I remember some years ago I had a young man interested in
plant diseases; he said, "If we had the kind of soil that they have in
— , anybody could grow lettuce; it is not a question of the man,
it is a question of the kind of soil." I said, "Do you really think it?
Let us send up there and get some." We got half a dozen wheelbar-
rows full and put up a bed of lettuce, and it was the worst diseased
bed of lettuce we ever had.
Mr. Pierson : Something that was said along this line started
me to my feet. I do not think that I can subscribe to the thought,
that the soil is the ne plus ultra, I believe the man behind the gun
has more to do with it. Of course we all recognize the fact that the
soil is a very important factor; we cannot grow anything good on
poor soil, but you must have gray matter behind it.
I believe on the question of plant diseases, we are paying too
much attention to remedies. We should pay more attention to the
removal of causes that permit the plant diseases. Take for example
black spot, which is so injurious to the rose under glass. You hardly
ever hear black spot mentioned in these days, but the question is to
find the cause that permitted black spot ; to try to cure a plant that has
been infected with black spot, is like trying to cure a man of con-
sumption. The thing to do is to start with a young, healthy plant and
keep that plant healthy, so I think our object in plant diseases is to
look at what produces the cause at first and then remedy it.
Mr. Vaughan asked about melon diseases in certain districts in
Colorado.
Mr. Pierson: I think in those localities that were mentioned the
climatic conditions are such that there are no diseases that interfere
with the healthy growth of the melon, and necessarily where the
foliage and plant are intact, the fruit must be of high quality, so out-
side crops are largely the result of accident we might say, rather, of
such locality where the conditions are favorable to such plant growth.
Of course, under glass one can have more control of circumstances
and look for the causes that produce diseases and obviate them by
getting rid of the cause that produces them.
Professor Van Deman : There is one other thing that has not
been touched upon, which I think has a great deal to do with this
whole subject, and that is climatology. The climatic conditions very
largely control the fungous diseases. We come into the arid regions
and they are very free from them; for instance, there are certain
fruits that may grow in certain climates almost irrespective of soil.
The cherry for example will grow nowhere in the United States as
large as on the Pacific coast, especially in Oregon and Washington ;
the cherries in' that region are not equalled anywhere in the United
States and it is largely a matter of climate. They may be left alone,
planted and almost absolutely neglected and yet they grow success-
fully because of the peculiarly favorable climatic conditions, and while
we are discussing this matter of soil and all those other parts of the
subject, we must take into consideration the climate as one of the
factors.
40 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
Professor Taft: Along this same line I want to refer to an in-
stance we had in Michigan. As many of you know, we have a sec-
tion in the southwest of Michigan where there are thousands of acres
of grapes and for years they were free from black rot. They have a
well-drained soil and at the time I am speaking of had a number of
years of extreme dry weather in August and September, and as a re-
sult of this condition, they grew the grape without spraying and with-
out black rot for two or three years, then had excessive rainfall you
might say in the summer time and the result is this, that the disease
has come in there and has seriously injured the grape and is gradually
spreading until it covers the entire section. Right here was the need
of remedies and this question was taken up and we found we could
control this rot by spraying. This year the unsprayed vineyards have
lost the entire crop, and where they have sprayed thoroughly, perhaps
five or six times and have done the work thoroughly, they have saved
the crop, there is hardly a grape to the bunch that is destroyed, and
when it comes to fighting insects and diseases we ought not only1 to
consider the soil and climate, but the extreme thoroughness in applica-
tion which I think was referred to by both speakers. Where they
have tried to spray and control rot, by two or three applications, it has
been largely a failure. We have had the same thing too with our
apple orchards this year. We found that the men who sprayed the
longest and those who were the most thorough in their applications
had the best success. They sprayed five or six or seven times and
had fruit free from scab, while the unsprayed trees, or those sprayed
two or three times, have suffered seriously.
Mr. Kendel : Dr. Woods spoke about frosts and it recalled to my
mind a visit I made a couple of weeks ago with a florist who was
protecting himself against early frosts in my section of the country;
we are apt to have a frost in October and then six weeks of nice
weather following. Two years ago it occurred the 20th of September
when it touched the corn, squashes and all kinds of crops. This man
had a tent as large as this room constructed of mosquito netting that
he has used for three years for covering his dahlias. The first year
he put this up the outfit was paid for from cuttings of dahlias that
were under the tent after the first frost. Outside of the tent every-
thing was destroyed and under it everything was saved. I do not
know the accuracy of a statement which I read some time ago, that
the frost created an acid in the plant that destroyed it. I have my
doubts whether that is true, because some years ago I had a Chinese
lily growing in my bedroom and the fire of the furnace went out and
the plant froze solid, the water in the dish was also frozen solid. I
set that Chinese lily, which was in full bloom, into my wash basin
and sprinkled it with ice water. That night the Chinese lily was
blooming as though nothing had happened. Now, if the frost put
acid into the plant, then the cold water took it out again. Possibly
there is some remedy in that direction for preventing damage from an
early frost.
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 41
Chairman Manning: I think this question of protection that Mr.
Kendel speaks of is very important in avoiding the effects of frost.
Dr. Galloway: A great deal of work is being done in the matter
of frost protection, so that on the Pacific coast where late frosts some-
times cause damage to citrus fruits, there the fruit is protected by
smudging, by water spraying and other processes. The question of
frost protection is in a measure a pathological question, and the method
of frost injuries is also a pathological question. The question the
gentleman just raised with reference to the cause is something that is
well known to those who have had experience with frost troubles, that
is, if you can prevent the frost from quickly going out of the plant,
as the common expression is, you can prevent injury, hence water upon
a growing plant produces that effect, simply due to changes brought
about in the cell.
A Member: I think we might take up the subject of Florists'
Flowers.
Mr. Pierson: I am a practical florist rather than a breeder or
experimenter. I am rather inclined to look at the profit, or discern
as far as possible the market value. I have rather prided myself on
the ability to see the dollars and cents ; Mr. Rudd has mentioned in
his paper that he does not find time to devote to the scientific aspect
of the case, but Mr. Rudd's article is full of thought; Mr. Rudd is
a thoughtful man and anything that he writes always makes people
think. He speaks of the relation between the variations by sports and
seedling variations and shows that they are not vastly different. I
think he is right in that. I think the ordinary deterioration in cuttings
comes from the very fact that we are not the close observers that he
says we should be, and make too many cuttings from deteriorated parts
of the plants, for we look at them collectively rather than individually,
even in one particular variety. Take for example our native tree fruits
of the forests, and there are probably hundreds or thousands of varie-
ties or distinct types of these trees, which if propagated by grafting
would be perpetuated, but we are not close observers and do not pick
out those particular types of trees and do not appreciate them. With the
florist's flowers you will find this quite marked in some cases. You
will remember the Pierson fern which was sent out some time ago.
That was an accident if we may so term it. One of my young men
who was a close observer saw in the small plant as it came from the
original plant a marked variation in the evolution of the leaf. It was
called to my attention, laid aside and developed into a plant that was
absolutely distinct from the original. This was not so wonderful in
itself, but it is in the fact that from this variation so many different
and unique forms of this species were developed. Now we have the
elegantissima, showing the tendency of this particular plant to under-
go bud variation the same as seedlings so often do. He speaks about
carnations deteriorating. I think we often assume that varieties deteri-
orate because they are sent out before they become well fixed. They
do not stand the test of time, consequently we are apt to hastily say
that they deteriorate. I claim they never ought to have been christened.
42 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
The best varieties like the Lawson and some of that type will not
necessarily deteriorate. We should be more careful in the selection
of buds and perpetuate the type which is most desirable. We want
thoroughness, we want to be closer observers and many things we
hastily say are wrong are simply due to the fact of our superficiality.
Professor Alwood: I would like to call on Dr. Woods on bud
variations.
Dr. Woods: Referring to the case of the fern varieties just dis-
cussed, might it not be possible that these were really hybrids instead
of varieties produced by bud variation? It is well known, of course,
that the crossing of ferns is readily accomplished through the trans-
fer of spermatozoids — small bodies corresponding to the pollen of higher
plants. While some variation might occur in ferns as a result of feed-
ing and of changed environment, or as a result of what might be called
mutations, it seems to me more probable that such variations are to
be explained as a result of some previous crossing or hybridization,
probably accidentally accomplished. The difference between a bud
variety and a variety produced by hybridization is, as Mr. Rudd has
pointed out, often not very great. But variations of the order of muta-
tions are sometimes produced by high feeding or by change in environ-
ment. This is particularly noticeable in bringing tropical plants north,
where they tend to break up into a large number of varieties through
the influence of climate. No new potentiality, however, can be intro-
duced into a plant by this process of breeding, and at best it is a chance
method of securing variation. On the other hand, by hybridization or
crossing, distinct potentialities of different individuals can be mixed in
almost any desired relation, and, if the work is intelligently done, it
can be made much more effective than dependence upon bud variation
as a method of securing new varieties.
AFTERNOON SESSION.
CHAIRMAN, PROFESSOR L. R. TAFT.
NUT CULTURE IN OUR RURAL ECONOMY.
WM. A. TAYLOR, WASHINGTON, D. C.
Discussion of the attractiveness and profit of nut culture has in
recent years awakened much interest among our people in the possibili-
ties of this rather newly developed industry. Among dwellers in cities
and towns the idea of nut culture appears to be particularly attrac-
tive and in the case of the average person to suggest as its principal
feature the sylvan shade and bosky dell of the nut harvest rather
than the hard work essential to success in other lines of orcharding.
As the result of considerable attention to the subject, the writer
has been forced to the conclusion that in the mind of the average per-
son the term nut culture stands for :
1st. A very pleasant harvest time in which a bountiful crop of
beautiful nuts of fine quality is garnered to be later sold at very re-
munerative prices.
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 43
2nd. The production at low cost and ultimate sale at high prices
of a considerable quantity of valuable chestnut, walnut, hickory or
other nut tree timber to be derived from the thinning out of the super-
fluous trees of the grove or orchard.
In short, the general conception of nut culture among our people
is decidedly visionary and highly tinged with sentiment. Doubtless be-
cause of the fact that almost our entire domestic supply of tree grown
nuts has until very recently been derived from the forests, there is a
deeply imbedded conviction in the average American mind that nut
culture is a phase of forestry rather than of pomology ; that it is closer
kin to timber production than to fruit growing. With the species
known to the writer this view is entirely and essentially erroneous.
The production of straight grained, sound and valuable timber
necessitates close planting with a view to forcing an erect and rela-
tively tall trunk. This in turn is accompanied by the rapid and con-
tinuously progressive smothering of the lower branches as the crown
of the tree reaches upward with the rising forest floor. The result
is a tall pole with a relatively small tuft of young branches such as
alone are capable of producing blossoms and nuts. The apparent
abundant yields of chestnuts, walnuts or pecans occasionally observed
in the crowded forest would not in fact be large yields at all if re-
duced to the basis of bushels or pounds per acre.
The production of good crops of nuts of most species on the con-
trary necessitates the development and maintenance of a relatively
large head of strong growing young wood which can only be done
under such conditions as provide an abundance of air and sunshine.
All experienced nut growers agree to the above statements. I take
it though there is still much difference of opinion among them as to
the necessity of cultivation, fertilizing, pruning and in specific in-
stances, spraying to control injurious insects and diseases. Many
maintain that the leaf imbedded, unstirred soil of the forest constitutes
the ideal soil condition provided other factors be right. The writer
is strongly of the opinion, however, that where nut trees are planted
primarily for the crops they yield rather than as windbreaks or for
road side ornamentation or shade near dwellings, systematic cultiva-
tion including judicious use of suitable cover crops will be found
essential. The leaf mold mulch method of humus production is not
practicable under the sunlight and moisture dispelling conditions of
the orchard, so man must exercise a directing influence over the con-
ditions of plant growth if he desires more regular and abundant crops
than the species concerned ordinarily produces in its natural state. The
fact is that Nature's methods do not promote maximum productiveness
nor highest quality of product as judged from the standpoint of man's
needs. Heavy crops of nuts in the forests are at most invariably fol-
lowed by very short crops or even total failure in many cases appar-
ently through inability of the unaided tree to set a normal crop of well
developed fruit buds while maturing a heavy yield of nuts. As with
our pomaceous and stone fruits we must steady the yields by furnish-
ing or rendering available sufficient fertility and conversely in some
44 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
cases by reducing the set of nuts in full crop years by judicious prun-
ing or even by hand i binning of over productive varieties of some
species. Regularity of abundant cropping is tbe exception rather than
llu- rule under the fores! condition and doubtless the most certain and
economical way of insuring it is by systematic orchard cultivation. At
least this lias been found true with the almond and the Persian walnut
on llu- Pacific coast where tbe production has assumed most import-
ance. There may be exceptions to this general rule as with the pecan
on alluvial soils that are abundantly fertile and moist and there may
be cases where the cheapness of the land and its inadaptability to
other profitable uses may justify an investment in nut growing where
only occasional full crops may reasonably be expected as with the
sprout Drafted chestnut orchards of the rough lands of the Alleghany
and Blue Ridge mountain regions. But the important commercial
development of the industry now under way and likely to show large
increase during the next de-cade will undoubtedly be along lines of
orchard practice not differing much in principle from those now recog-
ni/ed as essential in tbe production of the deciduous tree fruits.
Of the present status of nut culture in the United States little can
be shown in statistical form. The figures as compiled from the twelfth
census, covering the crop year of 1899, were as shown in the following
table:
Nut trees and product in Continental United States, census of 1900:
Trees. Pounds.
Almond 1.619,072 7,142,710
Cocoanut 48.664 136,650
Pecan 643,292 3,206,850
Persian or English Walnut 726,798 10,668,065
Miscellaneous nuts 634,460 380, L'M 1
Acres. Bushels.
Peanuts 51(i.r,:,j 11,964,109
Value of tree nuts. $l,<)4'.),'j:n. In all U. S., $1,950,161.
Value of peanuts, $7,270, .M.~>.
Total value of nuts produced, $'.), 220,446.
No statistics nor reliable estimates of later date relating to the
entire country are available, but by combining the known data on
imports of almonds and walnuts with the commercial estimates of the
yields of those nuts in California a fair notion of the quantity of those
nuts required to meet the present demands may be gained.
Approximate quantity of almonds and walnuts consumed in United
States, 1902-3 to 1906-7 :
ALMONDS.
1902-3. 1903-4, 1904-5, 1905-6, 1906-7,
It's. Ibs. Ibs. Ibs. ll.s.
Imported 8,142,164 9,838,852 11,745,081 15,009,326 14,233,613
Home grown 6,540,000 6,400,000 1,600,000 4,200,000 1.400,000
Total 14,682,164 16,238,852 13,345,081 19,209,326 15,633,613
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 45
WALNUTS.
1902-3, 1903-4, 1904-5, 1905-6, 1906-7,
Ibs. Ibs. Ibs. Ibs. Ibs.
Imported 12.362.5*7 23,670,761 21,684,104 !
Home grown 17,140.000 11,000,000 15,180,000 12.800,000 12,000,000
Total 29.502.567 34,670.761 36,864.104 37.717.02S 44, r.i>7. :.:»•_'
These figures appear to indicate an increasing consumption of
almonds and especially of walnuts and though the data on other nuts
are lacking there has unquestionably been larger consumption of pecans,
filberts, chestnuts and peanuts in recent years and a considerably in-
creased home production. It should be noted that we are still importing
much the larger portion of the almonds and walnuts that we are con-
suming, domestic production not having yet overtaken home consump-
tion.
Our total imports and exports of nuts for the last year were as
follows :
IMPORTS OF NUTS, FISCAL YEAR 1906-7.
Pounds, Value.
Almonds 14,233,613 $2,331,816
Cocoanuts, free 1,349,562
Cocoanut meat, broken, or copra, not shredded,
desiccated or prepared, free 7,064,532 302,132
Cream and Brazil, free 252,538 650,488
Palm and palm nut kernels, free 39,329
Walnuts, dutiable 32,597,592 2,969,649
All other free
All other dutiable 2,100,274
Total imports $9,743,250
EXPORTS OF DOMESTIC NUTS, FISCAL YEAR 1906-7.
Peanuts 6,386,012 Ibs. $278,236
All other 103,929
Total exports $382,165
Of the large number of species of nuts that enter into consumption
in this country those that appear to offer greatest promise to the
grower are the almond, Persian walnut, pecan, Japanese and European
chestnuts. The efforts at filbert culture thus far made in the United
States have not warranted extensive commercial plantings though the
impossibility of profitable filbert culture has by no means been demon-
strated. The improvement of the native chestnut and chinkapin, the
Eastern and the California black walnuts, the butternut, the shagbark
and the shellbark is well worthy of the attention of the amateur and
the breeder.
Two species, the almond and the Persian walnut, may be said to be
upon a sound economic cultural basis on the Pacific coast, and one —
46 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
the pecan — is approaching that status in the Gulf and South Atlantic
States.
Numerous questions affecting the nut industry are pressing for
solution, the rapidity with which plantings have been made having pre-
vented the acquirement of enlightening experience as a guide to the
commercial planters.
The important questions of self-fertility or sterility of varieties,
relative congeniality and adaptability of grafting stocks, resistance to
diseases and insects, etc., as well as the broad and important question
of relative adaptability of varieties to soils and regions demand thor-
ough and systematic investigation if the industry is to have healthy
and normal economic development.
COMMERCIAL GROWING OF GARDEN VEGETABLES.
W. W. RAWSON, BOSTON, MASS.
The culture of vegetables is one of the most interesting and profit-
able of the many branches of agriculture, and from the fact that the
demand for fresh vegetables is so great in our larger towns and cities
the growing of these crops has become a business followed by many
situated near the large markets. The business as carried on to-day is
termed market gardening to distinguish it from, the old-fashioned
farming. It requires a vast amount of knowledge and experience to be
a successful market gardener and one must not only know how to grow
but also what to grow. There are many crops of vegetables which may
be termed annual products, but there are a number of varieties which
may be grown to a high point of perfection at all seasons by the use
of glass.
The kitchen garden, as it is often termed, includes many of these
varieties and especially those which are most desired by the market
gardener, namely, lettuce, cucumbers, cabbage, onions, radishes, spin-
ach, beets, celery, carrots, parsnips, tomatoes, cauliflower, squashes,
peas, beans and corn.
A good many of these may be called luxuries and are quite difficult
to grow, but there exists a large demand for them in our larger cities
and towns and those market gardeners who specialize in the above
varieties and grow them successfully have built up a business or pro-
fession which is very profitable.
It is a well known fact that it is more difficult to grow crops in
the field than under glass and those who have the best knowledge of
the business grow many of the finer vegetables in that way.
To be successful requires not only a large capital and good land,
but also a thorough knowledge of the business. While in field culture,
we use the land for what it will produce with a little cultivation and
some fertilization, under glass we use land as a machine, putting into
it such a crop as we wish to produce and using such fertilizers as that
special crop requires.
i
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 47
As the manufacturer puts into his machine the materials which
with proper care and attention turn into the finished product, so it is
with the grower producing his crop from the soil.
The largest material necessary to produce any crop is moisture or
water, consequently no vegetable grower or market gardener can suc-
ceed without an irrigation plant. This is true in the field as well as
Binder glass, though under glass the water can be regulated according
co the requirements of the crop, while in the field the rains are often-
times so heavy as to cause more damage than benefit.
The fertilizers are applied before the crop is planted and as the crop
to be grown demands.
There is only one satisfactory complete fertilizer and that is stable
manure which is applied in such quantities as the crops require.
Wherever stable manure cannot be obtained it is desirable to use some
form of commercial fertilizer possessing the required amount of nitro-
gen and potash for that particular crop and soil, but for a general fer-
tilizer there is nothing equal to stable manure.
Many wonder how the land can stand so much stable manure
applied many times a year and for many years without a rest, but it
does stand it and will produce the best of crops even after a con-
tinual treatment of forty or fifty years.
There is however one complete fertilizer that has been used to some
extent the past two or three years and that is sheep manure. When
used as a top dressing for second crops in the houses I have found it
to be very satisfactory. It should be used sparingly, however, and only
in the pulverized form, which hastens its availability.
Where stable manure is impossible to obtain sheep manure may
serve as a substitute better than the commercial fertilizer, as it is a
complete manure, thereby possessing all the elements necessary for plant
life.
In the hothouses there are many insects, weeds, and fungi that get
into the soil and endanger the crop, but these are eliminated by a sys-
tem of sterilization or cooking of the soil at a temperature of 212
degrees.
This process will renovate the soil and produce astonishingly large
and perfect crops.
After sterilizing and getting the soil into perfect condition with an
application of 20 to 30 cords of manure the crop surely should grow
with proper care and attention. All crops require a certain amount of
light, heat, air and moisture and it depends wholly on the application
of these four items how well the crop will grow and how perfectly it
will mature.
During the short days of winter we are deficient in light, but this
can be supplied by the use of electric arc lights which will quicken the
crop about 15 per cent. The air should be always pure and so regulated
by ventilation as not to hurt the growing crop by a draft.
The heat is supplied by the sun and by steam conducted from the
boilers by pipes to all portions of the houses. The amount of steam
can be regulated by valves placed near the boilers, thus giving in each
48 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
house the necessary amount. Large boilers are required to produce
steam at as low a pressure as possible to heat large territories of glass,
that is, by the acre. The use of hot water is an ancient process to the
modern market gardener. When heating by steam the pipes are placed
3 or 4 feet above the surface of the soil at such distances apart as
the desired temperature requires, and only enough pipes to give the
highest temperature required in the coldest season.
The moisture or water is supplied from pipes arranged similar to
the steam pipes and used as the crops demand. I have spoken of the
use of electricity in the giving of light, but we have found that it is
equally as beneficial when applied to the soil by means of a current
passing through the soil from a battery at each end of the bed and
connected with a wire.
The circulation is manifest through all the soil to a marked degree.
The amount of this has to be tested at all points of the bed until the
proper amount of current is obtained, otherwise if too high the crop
will show a forced growth. This experiment has only just begun and
when we can regulate the current to that amount which is of the
greatest benefit without forcing the crop too much it will prove of the
greatest value to the modern market gardener. I have tried the experi-
ment in one of my houses in a bed 400 feet long, and the difference in
growth between that bed and one not treated was quite marked.
Now a word about greenhouses and their construction. The
foundation should be of cement, the frame of iron and the purlins in
cold climates of wood. The glass should be as large as possible,
20 in. by 30 in. having been found to be the most economical. As to
the size of the houses, I would recommend one 20 feet wide to be 100
feet long; one 30 feet wide to be 200 feet long; one 40 feet wide to
be 300 feet long; and one 50 feet wide to be 400 feet long. These
proportions have proved to be the most satisfactory, but I should
recommend the larger size as being much more economical to heat
and regulate.
I have only mentioned the way to produce crops as a whole in the
market garden. Each one of the crops mentioned above could easily
be made the subject of a lecture by itself, but I have not the time to
go into the matter now. This subject of the commercial culture of
vegetables has been studied deeply in New England and the prosperity
of the majority of our market gardeners shows with what success.
There are many branches of agriculture and horticulture which
may be familiar to many men, but the method to-day is to intensify
and specialize, and the truly successful man is the one who cultivates
only a few crops, those to which his land and climate are best adapted
and those which have the greatest demand in his market. We have
found in New England that while we depend upon the farmers of the
West and South for many of the necessities, they look to us for many
of the finer vegetables to supply them at certain seasons of the year.
While corn, wheat, oats and potatoes are their agricultural pro-
ducts, lettuce, cucumbers and celery are ours.
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 49
Massachusetts is not an agricultural state, but she produces annu-
ally at the present time $65,000,000 worth of products, her largest crop
being cucumbers under glass.
In the little town of Arlington there are to-day over 100 acres of
glass where thirty years ago there was not one acre, and we produce
there more products for our acreage than any other town in
the country, and I may say, the world. There are many hundreds of
acres under glass in the State of Massachusetts, all producing crops
of lettuce and cucumbers where forty years ago no glass was used.
The men of those days did well on their outside growing, but by
the intelligent use of all the new methods and inventions great changes
have been made. The sons of those men followed their fathers and
are cultivating successfully to-day the same land with the improved
methods and ever looking forward to still greater improvements and
thereby larger and better crops. The most successful of these present
market gardeners confine themselves to a few crops having a ready sale
all the season, thereby having a continuous crop and steady returns.
All of these men will testify that the business can be made as
profitable as any other business and they can live better, feel better
and know that what they enjoy really belongs to them and is not
obtained by speculation.
The time is coming when the business of agriculture will stand as
high as any calling and in the future those engaged in it will be looked
up to as men of intelligence and knowledge and be respected as ex-
ponents of the leading industry of mankind.
To the young men of today I would say, "study agriculture. Apply
yourself to that part of it to which you are adapted and which you like
best and you may be sure there is no calling in which you will take
greater pleasure." The profit is sure to come to those who follow it
and among the first branches of agriculture will be found the com-
mercial growing of vegetables.
COMMERCIAL GROWING OF ORNAMENTAL PLANTS.
W. H. TAPLIN, CHAMBERSBURG, PA.
The past decade has witnessed great advances in the production
of ornamental plants for commercial purposes in the United States,
the trade having in some instances attained to the dignity of being
specialized.
It is true that there are but few specialists in this department of
the trade as yet, the majority of plant growing establishments being
divided into various sections, rather than confined to a single specialty.
However, there are a few such places, and these are almost entirely
confined to the Eastern States, the specialists of the West devoting
themselves in most cases to the cut flower industry, in which many of
them are remarkable examples of success.
Broadly speaking, our cultural methods are adaptations of the
methods long in vogue in Europe.
50 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
By adaptations is meant that climatic differences have had to be
observed and some of our methods adapted to those differences, as
for example, the intense sunlight of our summer season makes neces-
sary rather more shading on the glass than is required in some parts
of Europe, and again the longer period of hot weather in the central
and southern portions of our country give us an advantage in the
rapid growth of heat-loving subjects.
As a rule, American plant growers are impatient of delays in the
production of marketable stock, the consequence being that the slower
growing plants are not handled to any great extent, such subjects being
imported from Europe, where labor is a little cheaper, and where time
seems to be less of an object.
As a result of these conditions such plants as bay trees, box
bushes, Aspidistras, Azaleas and various other plants that require much
time and labor in their culture, are imported from Europe.
The palm industry has made wonderful advances of late years, but
up to the present time there have not been enough palms of all sizes
to supply the demand, this condition causing the importation of large
quantities of these beautiful plants from Belgium each season.
It is true that a few small palms have been occasionally exported
from this country to Europe, but these exports do not approach the
imports in value.
The centers of commercial palm growing in this country at the
present time are New York, Philadelphia and Boston, the neighbor-
hood of these three cities doubtless producing more palms than all the
rest of the country together, and from those cities is shipped the
choicest stock of this description that is offered in the interior cities
and towns, even out to the Pacific coast.
By far the larger part of the palms that are annually sold in the
United States are grown here from seed, the imported stock being
chiefly in the larger sizes, such as are used for decorating.
The species thus used are few, and but little change will be noted
in the catalogues from 'year to year, as the qualifications of a useful
commercial plant are somewhat exacting.
To fulfil the requirements of a plant for this purpose it must needs
be a species that is readily obtainable, so that a regular supply of seeds
may be had each season, and it must also be of reasonably quick
growth, of considerable grace and beauty, and have foliage of an
enduring character. Thus we find that out of a possible hundred of
new species of palms that have been introduced to cultivation in the
past thirty years, there are less than a dozen to be found in the average
trade lists.
The most popular palms of the present day are the Howeas (other-
wise and more generally known as Kentias) the seeds of which are
imported by the million each season from a certain small island in the
South Pacific ocean.
The Howeas, or Kentias, are grown best in a night temperature of
about 60 degrees, and this may be considered as the low average tem-
perature for palm growing, in comparison with the high average palm
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 51
temperature of 68 degrees that is ordinarily given to Areca lutescens.
There are more pinnate leaved palms in the florists' lists than there are
of the fan-leaved section, the latter finding less favor with the general
public, about the only representatives of the fan-leaved section of
palms that are grown in quantity being a few species of Livistonas and
Chamaerops.
Some of the date palms, or Phoenix, are used for decorating, and
these are also used quite extensively for outdoor planting in the extreme
South and Southwest. As already hinted, there is a dearth of novelties
of real value in the palm trade, but among the few of recent introduc-
tion there is one Phoenix that is being taken up extensively, namely P.
Roebelinii, a very charming dwarf species from Siam, this palm now
being procurable in quantity, owing to a more liberal supply of seeds
that has been received in this country during the past three years.
Next in importance to the palms among the commercial ornamental
plants are the ferns, and to one unfamiliar with the trade, the numbers
of these plants that are annually distributed in our large cities would
seem marvelous.
The fern trade may properly be divided into two sections, the first
comprising those that are grown into specimens in pots of five-inch
size and upwards, and the second including the various ferns that are
grown for the purpose of filling table ferneries and making other
decorations.
These latter ferns for small ferneries are grown by the million in
small pots, 2-inch to 3-inch being the sizes most used, and while the
wholesale prices are not high, yet the crop is grown in a reasonable time
and is fairly remunerative.
The species most in demand are various species of the Pteris and
Nephrodium groups, the chief essentials for a plant that is to be thus
used being rapidity of growth, compactness of habit and distinctness
of foliage.
Among the ferns that are grown into larger sized plants for house
and store decorations, we find a greater variety, there being some of
the Maidenhairs or Adiantums, a number of Nephrolepis, some Pterises,
and an occasional representative of the tree ferns, among the most
notable being Cibotium Schiedei.
These ferns are all grown in moderately rich earth, but are given
just as much fresh air and light as they will stand, this resulting in a
sturdy growth of fronds that will endure much more abuse than those
that are grown in closely shaded houses and potted in light soil.
The methods of propagation vary with the species, some being
gotten from divisions of the crowns, others from runners, and those
used in the small sizes for table ferneries being raised from spores
almost exclusively.
As a business proposition, the fern department offers some induce-
ments to the expert grower, but stock of this character must be of first-
class quality to ensure a prompt and profitable sale.
The main crop of small ferns for ferneries is sown during the
preceding autumn, the time required from the sowing of the spores
52 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
until the seedlings are large enough for potting varying between six
and nine months, the practice being to sow the spores while fresh, as
some species lose their vitality by long keeping.
The supply of spores is usually a home product, and requires the
exercise of judgment in gathering and preservation. Palm seeds are
almost entirely of foreign origin, the Howeas being brought from
Lord Howe's Island, Arecas from Brazil, Cocos Weddeliana from the
same country, Livistona chinensis is sometimes home grown and is
also sent from Cuba and South America, Phoenix is rather widely
spread, and Livistona rotundifolia is grown in Hawaii, though a native
further south.
Ficus elastica and Ficus pandurata are both grown extensively in
the florists' trade, and both are admirably decorative for the dwelling,
besides being most enduring in foliage.
Dracaenas in several species and varieties are also grown in quan-
tity, the brightly colored varieties being especially in favor at Christmas
time.
Crotons in many varieties find a ready sale at the holidays, those
with high-colored leaves in which red, orange and yellow predominate
being quite largely used in window decorations and plant baskets at
that season.
Pandanus Veitchii is still grown extensively, and is more used than
any other member of its family.
The Dracaenas, Crotons and Pandanus are all heat-loving plants,
and with a rich soil and plenty of sun and moisture make rapid growth
and develop rich coloring.
Brightly berried plants are in demand at Christmas, and for this
purpose those most in favor are Ardisia crenulata (some of which are
home grown, and some imported from Japan), and one or two species
of Solanums.
Insects, and the means with which to fight them, are problems of
interest to the commercial plant grower, and while progress has been
made in this line, yet the perfect insecticide is still in the future.
Probably the most satisfactory thus far are some of the nicotine
preparations, the results from these having been better than the various
soluble oil preparations. The latter are more likely to injure tender
foliage than the nicotine when carefully used, but the disadvantage of
the nicotine preparations is found in their high cost.
In the matter of fertilizers, the progressive plant grower is also
frequently experimenting, for soils vary so greatly that it takes time
to find out the needs of each.
In palm growing, the best commercial fertilizer is one that contains
a good proportion of phosphoric acid, but manures strong in nitrogen
are also used to some extent, though an excessive use of the latter
produces brittle stems and foliage.
Among the other plants briefly noted in this paper various manures
are used, beginning with stable manure and running through bone dust,
dried blood, spent hops, soot, nitrate of soda and others.
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 53
The future of the plant trade in this country looks encouraging, for
the garden is a youthful institution in our land as yet, and its pleasures
and possibilities are only beginning to be realized, and while the pro-
portion of profit to investment is probably less than in cut flower grow-
ing, yet there is abundant room for all the well-grown plants that are
likely to be offered for some time to come.
COMMERCIAL GROWING OF CUT FLOWERS.
F. R. PIERSON, TARRYTOWN, N. Y.
The development in the commercial growing of cut flowers in this
country during the last thirty years is phenomenal. What might be
dignified as the commercial growing of cut flowers practically had its
beginning less than thirty years ago. Prior to that time, the quantity
of flowers produced was insignificant, the quality, compared with pres-
ent standards, inferior, and the methods of culture crude in the ex-
treme. With the increase of wealth, there has been a marvelous
progress in the production of cut flowers, both in the quality and the
immense quantities produced.
It seems incredible now that the writer, less than thirty years ago,
was advised by one of the foremost florists of that time not to go
into the cut flower growing part of the business, because it would soon
be overdone. This seems the more incredible when one considers that
to-day many single establishments .are producing more cut flowers
than the entire greenhouse production of the United States probably
amounted to at that time.
New York, which is one of the greatest cut flower centers in th<
world, thirty years ago depended on Boston for its supply of roses.
The leading varieties of roses in those days were Safrano, Isabella
Sprunt, and Bon Silene, all of which have practically disappeared, hav-
ing been superseded by improved sorts, and to-day these one-time popu-
lar roses are almost unknown. In carnations, at that time the leading
variety was President De Graw. A long-stemmed carnation was then
unthought of, as many buds being allowed to develop on one stem as
possible, and the flowers were cut with no stems. Loose, long-stemmed
flowers were then an unknown quantity. These short-stemmed flowers
were supplemented by wooden stems and wires, and made up into
baskets, bouquets, etc., in the most formal and artificial arrangement —
in fact, the inferior quality of the flowers permitted nothing better.
The best flowers then produced would simply be unsalable to-day, on
account of their small size and short stems. At that time so few roses
and carnations were grown that they were necessarily supplemented by
French and Dutch bulbs, which in those days were forced in com-
paratively large quantities.
In the earlier days of the cut flower industry, European methods
of culture were in vogue. The few roses and carnations that were
grown were grown mostly in pots, the greenhouses of those days being
very primitive. Up to that time, the buildings erected for the produc-
54 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
lion of cut flowers were very small and insignificant and comparatively
crude affairs. With the introduction of some of the finer roses, like
Perle, Cornelia Cook, Catherine Mermet, Bride and Bridesmaid, a great
impetus was given the cut flower industry, and then came the queen of
all roses — American Beauty.
I believe that the present up-to-date methods of rose growing had
their beginning in the vicinity of Madison, New Jersey. The old pot
method was discarded, and roses were grown on shallow benches in
light, sunny, airy houses, and the results obtained were exceedingly
satisfactory and profitable. Large ranges of rose houses were con-
stantly erected in that section, along the line of the Delaware, Lack-
awanna and Western Railroad, and at that time Madison, Summit, and
other towns in that vicinity were known as the Rose Belt of America ;
but since then immense ranges of glass for the cultivation of roses
have been erected in so many different localities around New York,
Chicago, Boston, and other large cities that no one place in the country
can boast of any particular supremacy.
The same development that occurred in the rose took place in the
carnation, but at a considerably later period, and the present fine varie-
ties of carnations that are now grown have all been produced within
the last decade. First came Mrs. Thomas W. Lawson, which marked
an epoch in carnation growing. This variety was the forerunner of
such fine varieties as Enchantress, Mrs. M. A. Patten, Beacon, White
Perfection, Winsor, etc. The trade was quick to discern that while
these improved carnations could be grown in the old-time houses, they
could be grown much better in the improved houses that were devoted
to rose culture.
Another flower which has become one of the most important is the
violet. In the earlier days violets were grown in cold frames, covered
with sash and straw mats ; and, of course, with our severe winters, the
supply was small and uncertain. The same improved methods of cul-
ture that have taken place with the rose and carnation followed with
the violet; and to-day violets are grown in large quantities in light,
airy houses — entirely under glass — a method of culture that fifteen or
twenty years ago was unheard and unthought of. The violet business
has been largely centralized for many years in the Hudson River valley,
especially in the vicinity of Poughkeepsie and Rhinebeck, which has
become famous as a violet-growing section, where the variety called
Marie Louise is principally grown. Princess, the large single violet,
which is not so difficult to grow, has been grown in other sections
where Marie Louise has not been grown successfully or profitably.
Immense quantities of Princess are grown, especially in the vicinity of
Boston, and also in some of the large Canadian centers.
One of the most phenomenal improvements that have been made in
any flower has been made in the chrysanthemum, which has been devel-
oped to such an extent that one who knew it twenty-five or thirty years
ago would not recognize the immense blooms grown to-day.
Another very important flower for the florist is the Easter lily,
which was grown only in very small quantities until the introduction of
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 55
the Bermuda Easter lily twenty-five years ago. Prior to that time, lily
bulbs were obtainable only from Japan and Holland, and the sources
of supply were very uncertain, besides which, the bulbs often reached
this market too late to force for Easter. Under these circumstances,
the advantages of the Bermuda Easter lily were immediately recog-
nized, as the bulbs could be brought here in July and August, so that
not only was it possible to force them for Easter, but they could even
be brought into flower by the holidays, so that the Bermuda Easter lily
has become one of the most important flowers, especially for the
Easter season, and is now grown in immense quantities.
I introduced the commercial culture of the Bermuda Easter lily in
Bermuda about twenty-five years ago, and for many years I believe
that one-third of the revenue of the Bermuda Islands was derived from
the culture and sale of this bulb. It has been grown there in immense
quantities, the normal output for many years being two million bulbs
and up, one year having reached as high as four million. Unfortu-
nately, with bad cultural methods, the quality of the bulb has deterior-
ated ; still, the Bermuda-grown lily is an important factor. But the
Japanese bulbs have made great inroads into the demand for the
Bermuda bulbs, on account of the lower price for which the former can
be supplied, and the fact that by reason of more rapid steamers and
transcontinental railroads, it is possible to bring the bulbs here as early
as September ; so that the Bermuda lily does not occupy the important
position to-day that it did fifteen years ago.
Among other bulbous flowers, the lily of the valley is one that has
held its supremacy. This always has been, and probably always will be,
in great demand; while other bulbous stock, like tulips, narcissi, and
especially hyacinths, do not occupy the prominent place to-day that
the}' did in former years. In the larger cities, especially in the East,
they are not very profitable. They are more largely grown in the
middle west and in interior towns, where the supply of roses, carna-
tions, and the other finer flowers is more or less limited. Bulbous stock
is more largely grown in Europe than in this country, because, owing
to the lack of sunlight there, roses and carnations can not be pro-
duced as easily as they are here ; so that the Europeans are more
dependent on bulbous stock; but, recently, English growers have found
that by following the American method of using shallow benches and
building very light houses, very good results can be obtained. This is
especially so with carnations, English growers having learned that they
can do much better with our improved American varieties than with
the varieties that they have grown heretofore, and there is beginning to
be a large demand for our newest and best sorts.
In the character of the greenhouses devoted to the cultivation of
cut flowers there has been a wonderful advancement in the past twenty-
five years. Twenty-five years ago 11-foot houses were in the majority.
Then came houses 18 to 20 feet in width, and when, fifteen years ago,
we built a range of four iron houses, each 20 feet by 300 feet, it was
considered a model range, being much in advance of anything that had
been built up to that time; but during the last five years especially,
56 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
there has been a marked increase in the size of the houses erected,
and to-day we believe that the best house that can be built is one rang-
ing anywhere from 50 to 60 feet in width. We are now building houses
56 feet in width, running east and west, in which we use 16 by 24-inch
glass and reinforced concrete sides, and we believe that houses of this
kind are the most economical in construction and operation. While
houses 56 feet in width are seldom seen to-day, I do not believe that
the limit of size has been reached by any means, and I believe that the
tendency will be toward still wider houses.
Large ranges have been built of the narrower ridge and furrow
connected houses, in an effort to obtain large areas under one roof,
but we do not consider this style of construction as advantageous as the
large separate, wide houses. Ten years ago no one had any idea that
such houses as are being built to-day were even practicable. To-day
the tendency is to gather under one roof more area than ten years ago
would have comprised an entire establishment. The reason for this is
the tendency toward specialization and the growing of one or two varie-
ties of flowers by different growers, one grower devoting his attention
to one variety of roses, like American Beauty, one concern alone grow-
ing as many as a hundred thousand of this variety. The same thing
applies to carnations — some concerns growing between one and two
hundred thousand carnations alone; and, of course, with the increased
quantities of one variety, much larger houses have become a necessity.
The tendency here in greenhouse construction is to increase the
size of the house and the size of the glass, and, by the use of steel raft-
ers, to eliminate as much woodwork as possible in order to get the
maximum amount of sunlight, thus enabling the grower to produce the
largest number of flowers during the short midwinter days when
flowers bring the highest prices.
To-day flowers are no longer considered a luxury, but rather a
necessity. In this connection, we might say that few people realize
what it costs to produce the finest flowers, especially during the short
midwinter days. In fact, I believe that in midwinter, when flowers
seem to bring phenomenal prices, they are actually produced at a loss,
when one takes into consideration the capital invested, the fuel con-
sumed, and the labor involved. Even with the prohibitive prices at the
holidays, I doubt whether they give the grower an adequate return
for the capital invested. Even in California, that land of flowers and
sunshine, where Nature is so kind, it is necessary to grow flowers of
good quality under glass, so that there, where one would naturally ex-
pect that flowers would have little or no value, it costs considerable to
produce flowers of high quality. In the East, during midwinter, when
there is little or no sunshine and when the amount of fuel required is
enormous, it is doubly so.
Looking back at the progress that has been made during the last
twenty-five years, and the improvements that have been made even dur-
ing the last five years, one wonders what the next twenty-five years
have in store for us. Certainly, .the end is not yet, for we have reason,
to expect as much advancement in the future as has occurred in the
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 57
last quarter of a century. Twenty-five years ago, anyone could have
gone into the florist business with little or no capital, and if careful
and industrious, failure could hardly result ; but to-day, with the large
amount of capital invested in large establishments and the consequent
ability to produce flowers more cheaply, larger capital is required, and
first-class, up-to-date business methods must be practiced. A man
cannot hope to succeed under the conditions that exist to-day as he
would have been able to succeed in the earlier days of the business —
in fact, the florist business, as it is conducted now in the larger estab-
lishments, is fast assuming the proportions of a flower factory, and the
same up-to-date business methods will have to be observed as in any
other manufacturing business to ensure success.
In the future, the man who will make the most marked success is
the man who is located in the right place; that is to say, where labor
is plentiful, where he can obtain a supply of coal at the least possible
expense — preferably near a large city, where the shipping facilities are
quick and frequent — where an abundant supply of water is to be had,
and where the soil is first-class. One of the most important considera-
tions is the selection of a proper location. Heretofore most greenhouse
establishments have been located without much reference to this, as
they have been developed from small beginnings; but the proper loca-
tion is a large element to be taken into consideration if one would be
successful.
I believe that to-day America leads the world in the production of
fine cut flowers, and, while we have many large establishments that we
may well be proud of, I believe that the business is only in its infancy,
and that we may expect to see marvelous progress in the future.
Chairman Taft : We have had very practical and helpful papers. As
you are all aware, Mr. Pierson is one of the largest rose growers in the
country and consequently a very successful one and he has given us
of his own knowledge a thoroughly useful talk on modern methods.
We are now getting out from under the glass ajid are going to take to
the woods, and our next paper on commercial growing of forest trees
is by Professor F. W. Rane, of Boston.
FOREST PROBLEMS.
F. W. RANE, BOSTON, MASS.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen. — Mr. Rawson is responsible
for my being here. I have just returned from the National Irrigation
and Forestry Congress held in Sacramento, Cal., and not having a
paper, you will excuse me for taking the subject up offhand. I am sure
I will not want for something to talk about as the subject of forestry
is boundless. Those of you who have kept in touch with forestry, even
if not in very close touch, will recognize, I am sure, that at the present
time the forest problem is one of the great economic problems before
the nation. Until more recently our forest products have been of low
58 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
value and little appreciated; the time has come, however, when things
have changed and to-day the forest product from the standpoint of an
agricultural crop is of as much importance as almost any other crop.
As the President of this Congress said in his address, this morning,
the main questions for discussion are: First, Where are we? Second,
What are we doing? and, third, What are our prospects? Now, when
we come to the subject of forestry, unlike my predecessor's subject in
its being old in the sense of gradual growth, forestry on the other
hand is not. WTe are just beginning to realize in this country that the
forest product, as I have said before, is a great economic problem be-
fore the nation. We have thousands and millions of acres of waste land
that heretofore were covered with beautiful forest growth. Particularly
is this true in the eastern section of the United States. These lands
to-day are practically idle. Heretofore, it has not perhaps been thought
profitable to farm them from the tree standpoint, but I am sure the
more we look into it, the more we will see where the grand possibilities
are.
It seems to me the thing that is needed as much as anything else in
our farming is getting down to some system and having a definiteness
of purpose. We must educate the farmers of to-day, from the stand-
point of taking, for instance, an inventory of the farm, selecting what
are the best lands for concentrated agriculture and horticulture, from
market gardening to fruit growing and field crops. There are plenty
of lands on most farms, known as barren, stony, rocky, sandy, etc.,
that will produce a forest growth which will yield a profit in nothing
else. I addressed a New England lumbermen's association last winter.
Strange to say, in that large organization of men who have been in
business for years, many of them, in fact the majority, had not even
seen white pine seed. Now, gentlemen, what is needed? It is not the
higher problems. When you come to forestry, it is the simple problems
that must be demonstrated. People have to be taught that pine trees
grow from seed and other equally fundamental forestry principles must
be shown. It is the A B C of forestry that is needed the most.
I find in New England that more can be accomplished in the desired
lines of forestry if people can be interested in the fundamentals first.
Lumbermen who cannot be convinced at once that thinning is prac-
tical and who believe in cutting clear, nevertheless take very kindly to
restoration by seeding and transplanting. Once the entering wedge is
started ultimate results will follow. The men who purchase stumpage
should be encouraged to study the practicability of restocking this land
and before they will do this they must be induced to purchase land and
all. Show them that in forty years as a long time investment, it is a
sure investment and these business men are going to reforest our lands.
Particularly is this true in our eastern section of the country where
we have Nature as an assistant. Why, if we were to move out from
New England, bag and baggage, I believe in fifty to one hundred years
we would have a wilderness. What does that demonstrate? It dem
onstrates that we have a natural forest country and the condition that
we are in is due to the wanton destructiveness of man himself. Our
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 59
people do not know what seeds are. Our forest seeds drop off the
trees, quantities of them that are practically unused except in Nature's
way. One man at a lumbermen's association recently in New England,
a man who had been a State Senator and a very prominent man in the
state, interrupted me when giving a talk before the association. I was
explaining what we were endeavoring to teach in the Agricultural
College, with which I was connected, and started out to say, that we
teach the young men to collect pine cones, extract and plant the seeds,
etc. "Now, hold on, right here," he said, "I have been a lumberman for
the last thirty-two years, and during that time I have picked up hun-
dreds of cones in my meanderings through the forest and I have yet to
find a pine seed, after breaking open cones upon cones ; how can you
explain that?" To his great astonishment, I explained that the seeds
dropped out before the cones fell off the trees and that the cones he
had picked up probably had lost their seed before they reached the
ground.
Now, I have letters upon letters from these men and their friends
wanting to know where they can get seeds and seedlings and this year
we have been trying in Massachusetts to get boys and other people to
collect the tree seeds. Some of this work simply leads right along to
later results.
The subject of forestry is so large and the opportunity so great
that we cannot begin to deal with its commercial aspect and do it
justice in this short talk. I have just returned from the Pacific Coast.
I have read a great deal of what the government is doing and I had.
a good opportunity to look into it, to see a number of the men that are
superintendents of reserves and talk with them and see how they are
systematizing and carrying out the work. Now, it is certainly encour-
aging to see what our government is doing there. I think, however,
we people in the East ought to awaken to an equal degree of interest
in our forestry interests in the East. The same is true with the eastern
lumbermen as in the West and in the Northwest. I visited some very
large mills in the State of Washington that were interesting. I was
told they were shipping into the States largely until of late; this year
they have not been dependent on the United States alone, as ships come
in and load up and their lumber goes to South America, Africa and
Australia. They do not depend upon our country, but on the markets
of the world; that shows that our export trade is increasing and that
our lumber tracts from many sections which we are expecting to look
to in the future are getting smaller. It is a world-wide problem, not
just a national one.
Now, the next question is, What are we doing? We are endeavor-
ing to do a great deal. I think the time is ripe, people are ready to
act, but the main difficulty is to get at the central principle of how to
establish fundamentals and build up the idea of a definite forest. The
lumbering end of forestry, as the digging of potatoes, is after the crop
is planted. It seems to me that the point is to get these lands back
into forests. Let Nature seed them where she will, and let us assist her
artificially when it can be done in a practical manner. There is no
60 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
trouble in collecting seedlings from the forest, or, better, having one's
own nursery. The farmer can afford to start a nursery even in the
garden and enlarge upon it as he gains experience. I visited D. Hill's
large evergreen nurseries at Dundee, 111., and I saw, with a great deal
of interest, their beds of pine seedlings. Mr. Hill grows upon an area
four feet wide and forty feet long, from ten to fifteen thousand seed-
lings. These seedlings have been sold at $4.00 to $8.00 a thousand in
New England. We have been sending for the most part clear out to
the prairies of Illinois and shipping these pines back to New England
where they are indigenous. Every farmer ought to be able to collect
his forest seeds just the same as he would any. other crop. We ought
to be able to grow pine seedlings for at least $2.00 a thousand and
it is just as easy to grow them as almost any vegetable crop in the
garden.
Lastly, what are our prospects? I think our prospects are bright,
but, on the other hand, it is going to take lots of interest from the
standpoint of men who have influence, like the men that compose this
Congress. The subject of forestry is one of the great economic prob-
lems, not of the present alone, but the future. In our mines we can
take out all the gold and silver and leave them worthless. On the
other hand, if we take our lands and carry them on systematically, we
can expect a financial annual income. Look at Germany. From some
of her forest lands she is getting so much an acre annually. Their
method of management would keep up agriculture and would foster
industries.
There are many other points I would like to take up, the subject
of forestry management, the subject of the price of lumber and why
it is going up, for example. Box boards nine years ago were selling
at $9.50 per thousand in Boston; this past winter, these box boards
sold at $20.00 per thousand. When I first went to New England
twelve years ago we were, buying, for example, Georgia pine from
the South, shipped into Dover, N. H., paying from $16.00 to $18.00 a
thousand. At the present time, it is selling at $30.00 and upwards.
When I was a youngster in southern Michigan, I can remember that
my father bought pine lumber at from $12.00 to $14.00 a thousand,
most of which was practically free from knots. To-day Michigan
clear pine lumber is worth over $100.00 a thousand. In regard to
forest fires, it is a question to be taken up by the various states who
shall regulate it and get at the natural channel whereby we can stop
fires; we can educate the lumbermen and farmers to make forestry a
definite system of agriculture. It seems to me this is undoubtedly
one of the great problems of to-day. Our National Government is
doing a great deal; it is doing magnificent work along this line, but
every state ought to be doing equally strong work and our individual
lumbermen and our farmers as well. I thank you.
Mr. Manning: There is a state law in Massachusetts in regard
to forest reserves and in their great public reserves the forests are
retained primarily for their beauty, and this is a phase that ought to be
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 61
seriously considered, because of their value as an asset in the com-
munity and in the state. You all know how little of the primeval
forest is now standing. I have in mind one instance in Wisconsin
where a lumber mill was about to give up its operation, it having
exhausted the territory that it had been operating in for perhaps forty
or fifty years. Near the mill was a very beautiful grove of old pine,
and in going along that stream, I called the attention of one of the
owners of the company and pointed out to him the fact that if he
could save certain lines of trees along the edges of the stream, that
he could retain all that beauty and still make a very considerable
cutting. Next year I went over the ground again and that mill had
been pulled down and they had saved over a million feet of lumber.
That shows what will be done by the owner of a forest in many
cases if the matter is simply called to his attention. They do appre
ciate the beauty of the forest and are glad to save it. In a part of
Massachusetts a grove of pines was about to be cut by a man who
operated in a small way in the eastern part of the state and he was
willing to yield up his cutting if the money be secured by subscrip-
tion to warrant him in holding it. It was the only remnant of a very
old pine grove that was in eastern Massachusetts.
Professor Lazenby: I am certainly gratified that this subject
finds a place in this Congress of Horticulture. Forestry is perhaps
somewhat alien to strict horticultural work, but I believe all horti-
culturists should be interested in this subject. The particular phase
in Ohio that is being carried on now with some degree of success is
the planting of those quick growing species that are valuable for posts
and poles, mainly such as the catalpa, the yellow locust, the mulberry
and osage orange. These are being planted now quite generally. I
think out of our eighty-eight counties there are plantations in cer-
tainly eight of the counties to a greater or less extent that have been
made within the last three years. In some of the counties many plant-
ings had been made before, but in one of the central counties of the
state over one hundred acres of catalpa were planted this past spring.
I should like, while I am on my feet, just to emphasize if I could
the importance of timber growth, the importance of looking upon it,
as Professor Rane says, as a farm crop. Farm forestry is the only
forestry we will have in time, but then somebody has said that our
whole civilization rests almost wholly on wood. I do not believe
unless we think of it a little bit, that we realize how wood follows
us right from the cradle to the grave. When we are born, the
first thing we are put in is a wooden cradle or basket ; as soon as we
can sit up, we sit on a chair or bench that is made of wood, and we
continue to use that material all through our lives. We never sit
down to read without sitting before a table of wood, when we read a
newspaper it is made of wood, and when we die, without exception we
are put in a box that is made of wood. It is not, however, for the
wood alone. I am glad that Mr. Manning made the plea on the
esthetic side, and I hope that we will emphasize that side of the ques-
tion also. There is great beauty in trees. I never see a fine speci-
62 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
men of a tree without feeling like taking off my hat and saying to it
with all oriental courtesy and certainly all oriental sincerity, "May
your shadow never grow less," and the only way we can keep the
shadow from growing less is to plant trees and if ever one is cut
down we shoujd see to it that another tree is put in its place. The
condition in Ohio is a little different from most other states, and yet
it is no less a problem there than elsewhere. We have no waste
land. There is scarcely an acre of land that people think they cannot
use for any other purpose. All the state was so heavily wooded that
the trees were regarded as a sort of enemy, and we have to excuse
this lack of interest in forestry. When the great work of the state
in the past was to cut down trees and get them out of the way, it
was very hard to get them interested. We are turning a sharp corner,
to get them interested in the growing of trees.
Chairman Taft : We would like to have Mr. Goodman tell us
something about Missouri.
Mr. Goodman : Missouri is a very wooded state and we have
had no occasion to plant. I wish to tell you of an instance or two
which occurred where I had a hand in planting down in southern
Kansas nearly thirty years ago. Robert Douglas, from Waukegan,
111., was employed to plant a thousand acres of catalpa and other trees
down in the southern part of the state, and it is hard to tell you how
much money that thousand acres has brought in, the cost of which at
that time was $25 per acre for prairie land. I cannot tell you the
amount of money that land has brought in for the last twenty years,
and the property to-day is worth a thousand dollars per acre with
the timber that is on it. Mr. Monk, Mr. Underwood and others also
have large plantations of catalpa trees, and I am probably safe in
saying that had I planted catalpa trees instead of orchard trees, as I
have planted them there by the thousand, I believe I would have
made $100 where I have made one, and I have made some money
in the orchard business. Down in Hutchinson, Kansas, are two large
plantations, one owned by Mr. Yaeger, who tells me he has sold
from that plantation of 800 acres, 10,000 trees a year. A part of the
plantation is now making its third growth of forest trees in thirty
years. He cuts those catalpas down and in one year a sprout will
come and when grown it will get eight or ten and in some instances
fourteen feet high and some of those have been cut twice within
thirty years. They sell the poles for telephone posts and that sort, of
work. They do not get large enough for the lumber business, but it
is still a money-making proposition in the western country.
Mr. Augustine: Mr. Chairman, I want to say that if Mr. Good-
man planted anything but the speciosa variety I should consider his
land worth less than it was before planting. The great danger in
planting catalpa for timber is the difficulty of getting the genuine
speciosa seed, and it is quite difficult to tell the genuine until the trees
attain a considerable size. Therefore great care should be taken,
as the other varieties of catalpa are worth little if anything for timber.
There is no doubt in my judgment that Catalpa speciosa is among the
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 63
most valuable of all woods for planting in the central part of the
United States, if not the most valuable.
Mr. Jesse Fell, probably the greatest tree planter of the Mis-
sissippi valley, whom some of you probably knew, once gave me a
beautifully polished piece of Catalpa speciosa wood, telling me that
it had been buried in the ground at Cairo, 111., for 125 years, and
also told me of a foot log that had been across a stream in southern
Illinois for 65 years, and both of these were seemingly as sound when
removed as ever. Mr. Fell also showed me how to distinguish between
speciosa seed and that of other varieties. The fuzzy end of the
speciosa is spread out the same width as the body of the seed, while
the other varieties come to a point and curl up like "a dude's mus-
tache," as he expressed it. To convince me of the hardiness of the
tree he took a seedling tree in August about three feet in height,
with heavy foliage and unripened wood and split it from top to
bottom, stating that the cut would heal over by fall ; later he called
my attention to it and it had healed perfectly and was a tree with
two branches.
I think that this society could be very helpful in assisting seed-
ling growers and planters in securing the genuine speciosa.
Professor Rane : The great trouble in taking up the problem
of forestry seems to be especially with our financiers, because they
think it takes so long to get any returns. They seem to think it will be
the next generation that will reap the reward of the work. Last
winter I had some bills before our General Court in Massachusetts,
and one of the men who appeared before the committee was Mr.
Augustus Pratt, whose name I believe has been mentioned more or
less in some of the publications in the United States Forestry Bureau
Report. He said when he was a young man twenty years of age.
upon his father's farm were three and one-half acres of land that
was used for pasture purposes in which they were driving cows back
and forth about a mile from the barn. He suggested to his father
that this land be planted to white pine. He did the work himself,
planting the seed by dropping three or four in a place. These grew
until seven years ago, when he sold the crop at the rate of $5.00 a
thousand on the stump and that area netted him at the rate of 50,000
feet per acre, which was $250.00. That was on land not adapted to
general agricultural purposes, but land on which the brush had to be
kept down in order to use it for pasture. He was a man seventy
years of age, and he said that if he had waited until the present time
the same stumpage would sell at $7.00 instead of $5.00, making
therefore a net profit from one yield on the stump of $350.00 per
acre. Now that experience can be duplicated over and over again and
more particularly when seedlings are grown and are transplanted.
Speaking of the esthetic side we have in Massachusetts a Forestry
Association of some eight hundred members, people that are enthusi-
astic and delighted to do almost anything; I think it was Mr. Manning
who suggested retaining a few acres of large original standing pines;
the people were delighted to buy it up and retain it. But, on the
64 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
other hand, our lumbermen are men that have been after the lumber
end and it has been absolutely necessary to get in touch with them.
Our lumbermen are business men and if we can get them to collect
the seeds and replant, they will assist in the esthetic side by virtue
of the fact that they will be covering up these unsightly conditions. I
believe the time is coming when both the practical and esthetic men
will get together and see that they are both working toward the same
end.
Mr. McNeill : I hope that you are not overlooking the ordinary
sugar maple in this connection. It is a tree that is very valuable for
its sugar products, frequently adulterated, but the laws in the various
states and provinces are now making it very hard indeed to deal in
anything except the genuine sugar. There are a very few trees now
and they are of very high value per acre as a lumber tree. There
is an unlimited demand, the demand for maple timber is increasing
much more rapidly than the supply, and I believe that there are many
parts of the New England states, certainly parts of the Provinces of
Quebec and Ontario that will yield large returns planted to sugar
maple.
Dr. Galloway: There is a phase that has not been touched upon
and that will probably be of interest to the members of the Congress,
namely, the introduction and encouragement of growing bamboo in
this country. The bamboo constitutes the chief wood supply of im-
portant countries like Japan and India, and has long been the only
source of wood supply. The last two or three years we have had a
line out in that direction and I have a man in Japan and in India
making a special study in relation to their utilization in house con-
struction, bridge material, furniture and so on, and we have secured
the services of that man and are now importing considerable quanti-
ties of bamboo, with the idea of putting that out in the sections of the
United States where these other woods do not thrive so well, namely,
in some of the swampy regions of the South. Bamboo must be grown
where it is quite wet and we have been doing considerable in the way
of investigations in that line.
Professor Van Deman: While I am a fruit grower and have had
a great ?deal more to do with the destruction of forests than I have
had to do with in any way increasing them, because I have destroyed
110 acres of pine within the last three years in southern Florida and
put it out to citrus fruits and some other fruits of a semi-tropical
nature, and in Louisiana I am now engaged in deforesting over 1,000
acres of the finest Mississippi bottoms, yet it is something that has
always deeply interested me, and this thought has occurred to me
with regard to the preservation and reforestation of the Appalachian
mountain chain, if we could in some way prevail on these great-hearted
millionaires, if we could get those men to open their hearts and buy
these vast tracts of practically worthless farming lands in the Appa-
lachian mountains and donate to the government, it would certainly
be a wonderful step. I do not know that such a thing could possibly
be brought about, but if we could get it to become fashionable for
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 65
these great moneyed men to buy these lands and donate them to the
public, we certainly would have made a wonderful step. If these for-
ests could be thus preserved for all time to come, they would be a
pleasure as long as our country lasts.
HORTICULTURAL CONDITIONS IN CANADA.
W. T. MACOUN, OTTAWA, ONT.
The title "Local Horticultural Conditions," given on the pro-
gram, seems too restricted to apply to a country so vast as the
Dominion of Canada; a country larger than the United States, includ-
ing Alaska, by nearly 200,000 square miles. It might be thought, how-
ever, by those not knowing the conditions that Canada was, for the
most part, a land of frost and snow, but when it is stated that in the
prairie provinces alone, which are now being rapidly populated, there
are estimated to be 171,000,000 square miles suitable for cultivation, of
which at least one-fourth could be planted to wheat annually, produc
ing an estimated crop of over 800,000,000 bushels, it will be readily seen
that the future possibilities of the country are great. The United
States at the present time produces less than 700,000,000 bushels of
wheat and supplies her population of over 80,000,000 and has some
for export.
It may be asked, What has all this to do with Local Horticultural
Conditions? What we first desire to show is the great future of Can-
ada, which has much to do in shaping horticultural conditions as the
thousands of people who are pouring into the prairie provinces of
Canada want fruit and, with the exception of tropical fruits, it will be
grown for them in Canada.
The fruit areas of Canada are large, large enough to produce
enough fruit to supply Canada, and the rest of the world for that
matter, with some kinds of fruit, and particularly the apple, for many
years to come.
Beginning with the great province of Ontario, 220,000 square miles
in area, larger than the States of New York, Ohio, Illinois and Michi-
gan together, we have large districts where apples, pears, peaches,
plums, cherries, grapes and the small fruits can be grown to perfec-
tion. The province of Quebec is considerably larger than Ontario and
while the tenderer fruits do not succeed, apples are being grown in
increasing quantities yearly. From east to west in the provinces of
Quebec and Ontario there is a belt where apples and other hardy fruits
can be grown, of about 700 miles in length, while in the province of
Ontario alone the best winter apples, pears and plums can be grown
successfully over an area about 350 miles long by from 30 to 150 miles
in width. The successful culture of peaches in Ontarip is confined to
the Niagara district and some points along Lake Erie, but the area
suitable for growing this fruit is extensive enough to supply a large
population.
66 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
Nova Scotia has long been noted for her apples. The most
favored districts are the Annapolis and Cornwallis valleys where ap-
ples, pears, plums and cherries can be grown and where even peaches
can be successfully raised. These valleys have a total length of about
100 miles and vary in width from six to eleven miles. Fruit culture is
not confined to this district but over most of the province the hardier
fruits can be grown successfully. New Brunswick has not yet devel-
oped her fruit industry to any great extent, but in some of the valleys
apples and other hardy fruits of the finest appearance and best quality
can be and are produced.
Prince Edward Island, the smallest province of the Dominion,
produces excellent tree fruits, and owing to the late season the apples
grown there keep better than in any other part of the Dominion.
British Columbia, the area of which is about 370,000 square miles,
or more than twice the size of California, has large sections of coun-
try splendidly adapted to fruit culture. Like the states of Oregon and
Washington, with which her natural conditions may be compared, Brit-
ish Columbia has a number of districts where the conditions differ from
one another. Three of. these are first, in the damp coast climate of
Vancouver Island and the lower mainland ; second, in the dry interior
country where irrigation is, as a rule, necessary, and third, in the
Kootenays, east and west, where irrigation is necessary only in
places. In these districts all the best fruits, including peaches, can be
grown to great advantage.
The prairie provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta and
the great districts to the north produce excellent bush fruits, but the
tree fruits have for the most part not done well up to the present,
although the time is coming when these provinces will be producing at
least apples and plums of their own.
These are the possibilities of fruit culture in Canada. What are
the actual facts?
When the last census was taken in 1901 the total number of fruit
trees in Canada was 21,201,239, and it is thought that the number has
increased by at least 10 per cent since that time, making the total num-
ber now over 23,000,000 trees, occupying about 410,000 acres, with a
capital value of nearly $75,000,000.
There is an annual export of apples from Canada of from 1,200,000
to 1,500,000 barrels, the province of Ontario supplying about 1,000,000
of these and Nova Scotia from 300,000 to 500,000, a limited quantity
going from some of the other provinces. British Columbia, which is
now producing increasing quantities of fruits of many kinds yearly, is
bending her efforts to supplying the prairie provinces, and has been
very successful in placing her fruits on these markets in good condi-
tion. Ontario is a close competitor of British Columbia for this trade
at present, but the increase in population is so rapid that it will take
both provinces to supply the demand for a long time to come.
What are the influences affecting Canadian horticulture to-day?
They may be discussed but briefly. The Dominion experimental
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 67
farms, now seven in number, work upon which was begun over twenty
years ago, have played an important part in developing Canadian horti-
culture. There are the Provincial agricultural colleges, of which
there are four, with their experiment stations which disseminate infor-
mation both through the students who are trained, and by literature.
The Provincial experiment stations and model orchards which in all
are between fifty and sixty in number, are also doing much to demon-
strate the possibilities of fruit culture in their several districts. Seven
Provincial fruit growers' associations lend their aid in spreading a
knowledge of the best methods of fruit culture and of uniting the
growers for purposes of co-operation and legislation. The horticul-
tural literature of Canada, although represented by few papers has
done much to aid fruit, flower and. vegetable growers.
The farmers' institutes and orchard meetings organized by the
Provincial governments and assisted by the Dominion government are
very practical and helpful. The horticultural societies assisted by the
Provincial governments, of which there are about fifty in the province
of Ontario, are doing splendid work in awakening a greater interest in
horticulture and in spreading information.
All these factors affecting horticultural conditions and progress in
Canada have been made to bear still better fruit by the co-operative
movement which has in recent years made such strides in Canada. In
the province of Ontario alone there are forty co-operative associa-
tions which now have a central organization where plans affecting the
welfare of all the associations are discussed. These associations are
doing much to make the fruit sold of a more uniform character and to
bring better returns to the producer.
One of the best influences affecting horticultural conditions in
Canada is the Fruit Marks Act, passed in 1901, and operative over the
whole of Canada. By this Act growers are compelled to pack their
fruit according to certain standards and are liable to fine if they do not
do so. Inspectors are stationed at packing houses, on the markets and
at the ports of export, who examine the fruit and see if it has been
packed according to law. A marked improvement has been noticed in
the Canadian fruit exported since this law went into effect. There are
also standard apple barrels and boxes and baskets for the whole of
Canada, all of which make the packages for the different fruits more
uniform. It may be said that Canadians are taking advantage of all
these influences for good and are adopting the latest and best methods
in horticultural practice.
The development of floriculture in Canada has been rapid. Not-
withstanding the more severe winters than those to the south of us, the
plant and cut-flower trade has developed wonderfully, the increase in
the value of trade being 400 per cent during the past ten years. It has
been estimated that the amount of capital invested in greenhouse
equipment, stock, etc., is $5,000,000, with an annual value of trade
transacted of $2,000,000. This is but a beginning, as Canadians love
flowers.
68 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
We must not omit the growing of vegetables, with which Cana-
dians are well supplied. The truck interests are growing rapidly as
our cities increase in population.
At the beginning of the 20th century Canada has about 6,000,000
of population or approximately as much as the United States had at
the beginning of the 19th century. It has been said that the 19th
century was for the United States but that the "Twentieth Century is
for Canada." We believe that this is true in regard to horticulture as
in other matters.
HORTICULTURE IN THE EASTERN STATES.
JOHN K. M. L. FARQUHAR, BOSTON, MASS.
Representing as I do at this Congress the section of this country first
settled by the white race, it affords me the greatest satisfaction to point
to the very early date at which interest in horticulture found expres-
sion. The very name of their vessel, the Mayflower, must have brought
oftentimes to the recollection of the Pilgrims during their long voyage
the fragrant and beautiful hedgerows of white or pinkish hawthorne,
which, in England, they had called mayflower, a namfc which they soon
bestowed upon the choicest and sweetest of the spring flowers of their
adopted country. Long before they saw the mayflower bloom, how-
ever, the Pilgrims had raised their voices in praise of the beautiful gar-
den products of the new world. The explorers they sent out, November
16, 1620, reported that they had found divers fair Indian baskets filled
with corn, some whereof was in ears, fair and good, of divers colors,
which seemed to them a very goodly sight, having seen none before,
of which rarities they took some to carry to their friends on ship-
board, like as the Israelites' spies brought from Eschol some of the
good fruits of the land.
In 1621 Edward Winslow describing the new country wrote :
"Here are grapes white and red and very sweet and strong also ; straw-
berries, gooseberries, raspberries, etc. ; plums of three sorts, white,
black and red, being almost as good as a damson ; abundance of roses,
white, red and damask, single but very sweet indeed/'
In the spring of 1621, the Pilgrims at Plymouth planted 20 acres
of corn and six acres of bar'ey and peas. The corn did well, but the
peas were not worth gathering, having been sown too late and become
sun scorched while in bloom. Numerous records of farm and garden
crops planted by the Pilgrims have come down to us, and many evi-
dences still exist in the locality they occupied of their zeal in garden
work. At first the colonists of necessity imported tree fruits and vege-
tables for their sustenance. Within twenty years of the landing of the
Pilgrims, 'Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts colony at his farm
in Charlestown, 'Governor Endicott of the Salem colony, Governor
Prince of the Plymouth colony and Governor Stuyvesant of New
Amsterdam had established nurseries, dealt in fruit trees or plants and
were promoters of horticulture. Fruits, vegetables and a large variety
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 69
of herbs were imported and sold. Flowers were too great a luxury for
the colonists and with the exception perhaps of a few roses, honey-
suckle and pink milfoil, were not grown.
FLORICULTURE.
Not until the beginning of the eighteenth century was there oppor-
tunity to give much attention to flowers. About that time the wealthier
citizens of Philadelphia, Boston and New York began to cultivate
large gardens, usually arranged in terraces after the English style of
that period, about their residences. One of these estates in the very
heart of Boston, was the residence of Governor Belingham, and after-
wards of Andrew Faneuil, who built upon it the first greenhouse in
New England. On his decease it became the property of his nephew,
the famous Peter Faneuil, who presented to the city of Boston the
cradle of liberty. So beautiful was the garden that it became known as
Faneuil's Seven-Acre Eden.
The revolution stopped further progress in horticulture until the
country became settled under the new government. Then began an
era in garden work, marked by a greater enthusiasm than ever be-
fore— enthusiasm which got its impetus from Washington, as he sur-
veyed grounds at Mount Vernon and made plans indicating the location
for trees and shrubs, many of which he collected or imported from
Europe, and which upon arrival were planted by the same busy hands
that earlier in their existence had cut down the immortal cherry tree
and which later in life made pruning their favorite exercise — enthu-
siasm which drew with it the second and third presidents of the
United States, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, as well as many
other notables of the eighteenth century — enthusiasm so perennial and
vigorous that all predictions of progress have been more than fulfilled.
A. J. Downing, in his excellent work on landscape gardening, pub-
lished about seventy years ago, said: "In the United States it is
highly improbable that we shall ever witness such splendid examples of
landscape gardens as those abroad," referring to Blenheim, Chatsworth,
Woburn Abbey and Arundel Castle. That which Mr. Downing
deemed improbable has taken place and gardens more elaborate and
costly are being constructed at the present time in the United States
than in any other country. Take for example, the beautiful gardens of
James B. Duke at Somerville, N. J., which have been under construc-
tion for six or seven years, under the guidance of that genius of land-
scape art, Horatio Buckenham, employing 1,200 persons and involving
an annual expenditure of $500,000 or more — a. garden covering an area
of 10,000 acres.
The pioneers of horticulture of 100 years ago were the wealthier
citizens; there were really no professional gardeners then. The Penn-
sylvania and Massachusetts Horticultural Societies were organized by
those interested amateurs. A similar society was organized in New
York in 1818 but ceased to exist in 1837.
The first professional gardener to come to this country was John
70 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
Hasketh, who settled in Hallowell, Me., in 1797, and was not after-
wards heard of. In 1824, Andre Parmentier, from Enghien, Holland,
settled in Brooklyn and established nurseries where he gave an example
of the natural style of laying out grounds. As the first American land-
scape gardener, Mr. Parmentier soon had many clients from all parts
of the country, and even from Canada, to whom he furnished plans
and plants. Mr. Downing considered that Mr. Parmentier had done
much more for landscape gardening in America than any other indi-
vidual. It is our turn to pay the same compliment to Mr. Downing,
whose masterly works on landscape gardening, although written about
seventy years ago, are still the standards.
In the economic line of horticulture there has been progress also.
In New England we have now not only delicacies for the sick and
luxuries for the wealthy, as our ordinary garden vegetables and fruit
were considered in the early days, we go much further — we have gard-
eners who produce asparagus, cucumbers, tomatoes, string beans, mel-
ons, etc., as freely during December, January and on to June or July,
as they are produced in the open ground in their season. One New-
port gardener ships to his employer in New York a bushel or two of
melons weekly. Another on the north shore of Massachusetts sent in
during March a daily supply of fresh peas, sweet corn, etc.
COMMERCIAL HORTICULTURE.
In commercial floriculture the East has made great progress. 1
need only recall Lawson and Enchantress carnations raised by Peter
Fisher of Boston; the work of the Waban Rose Conservatories, the
recent new roses of M. H. Walsh of Woods Holl, Mass., which are
quite as popular in Europe as they are here.
The concentration of wealth in New York ensures for the eastern
florist the highest price for choice flowers. It also affords the private
gardener the largest opportunity for the pursuit of his profession.
Within the past five years there seems to have- been much greater inter-
est on the part of the wealthy class than formerly, in horticulture anc1
rural life. This may be accounted for partly by travel, and a desire to
have such gardens as are seen in Europe, but I think it is due rather
to the fact that the automobile has rendered the country home more
accessible to the business man. The interest of the well-to-do in horti-
culture is further manifested by their support and activity in societies
for its promotion, as the New York Botanical Society, the Massachu-
setts Horticultural Society and others.
The three largest eastern cities have each much to be proud of
horticulturally. Although the Bowery is no longer the Governor's
garden, New York has a notable horticultural institution in Bronx,
Philadelphia has her beautiful Fairmount park, sections of which are
notable gardens of the past two centuries. Boston has always been at
the front in horticultural work. No institution in the country has done
as much as the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. The names of
General Dearborn, H. H. Hunnewell, Marshal P. Wilder, C. M. Hovey
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 71
and F. L. Olmsted are too well known for the great works they have
accomplished to necessitate my reviewing them.
But we have in Boston to-day one who is doing a greater work for
horticulture than anyone who has preceded him. I refer to Professor
C. S. Sargent. To him Boston and the country is indebted for the
finest arboretum in the world, in which there are now growing 5,000
species and varieties of trees and shrubs. He has traveled over the
greater part of the globe seeking new material and his collectors are
now busy in hitherto unexplored regions, collecting new material for
shipment to Boston with which to enrich American horticulture. Daily
he spends hours in his office personally examining and describing
species and varieties of trees and shrubs for his "Silva," the greatest
work relating to horticulture ever undertaken in this country. The
magnitude of the work at the Arnold Arboretum may be better under-
stood when it is learned that 350 varieties of Crateagus have been
planted. There are approximately 150 varieties of Syringa vulgaris, 70
of Prunus, 40 of Malus, and about 400 species and varieties of willows.
Another medium of horticultural progress is the Gardeners' and
Florists' Club which has over 500 active members. Meetings are held
monthly for the discussion of garden topics and a class devoted to the
study of landscape gardening meets twice a week during the winter
months. The magnificent private estates of the East, including those of
Bar Harbor. Boston and the Massachusetts coast, Lenox, Newport,
Long Island, N. Y., overlooking the Hudson, along the New Jersey
coast, and in the vicinity of Philadelphia demand from the gardener
the highest degree of energy and progress.
HORTICULTURE IN THE CENTRAL WEST.
L. A. GOODMAN, KANSAS CITY, Mo.
If the West brags, "We can beat the world," we also prove it by
our study and work, by persistence and energy we bring about rapid
improvement and advancement. The horticulture of the West is fast
coming to the front and the East is adopting many of its improved
methods and advanced ideas. It is as though the westerner's sense of
power and ability were an electric current derived from the conscious-
ness of walking, living, working on a star — of having the privilege of
living in a grand universe, and of improving at least a small portion
of it. Our spirit is that of the pioneer trying new shores, going on to
unknown plains and forests; his love of exploration and investigation
persists, his faith in better things is never discouraged, but with these
goes a balance of good sense, patience and work.
We are pushing the insect war, studying and applying sprays
against insects and diseases. Our scientific men are practical, not
buried in the laboratory, our growers are becoming scientific students.
The movement for agricultural education is growing, the agricultural
college and stations are spreading their information and their influ-
ence. The Prairie Farmer of Illinois helped to educate the people to
72 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
the need of public schools before 1855, when they were established by
law in that state. Illinois early began the campaign for instruction in
natural sciences and in 1872 secured a law requiring the examination
in this line of her school teachers.
Because of our distances from markets, because .of our extensive
plantings, we have had to study the questions of storage and distribu-
tion. The cold storage methods are yet to be perfected and it now
seems that it will be necessary to cool the fruit before it is put into
refrigerator cars. New districts are opening up as markets for our
large yields of fruits. The Northwest will support a vast population
that will need fruit from the South. Not one-half of the land now in
farms is improved, not one-fifth of the land area of the United States
is improved. "The farms now existing," says the Secretary of Agricul-
ture, "could be made to produce enough to feed many times the coun-
try's present population, were the best and most intensive agricultural
methods of European countries applied, and still have a surplus for
export."
Fifty years after the discovery of America and sixty-five before
the landing at Jamestown, the first white man, a Spaniard, put his foot
on Missouri soil. Two hundred and seventy years later (1812), Mis-
souri was admitted as a territory, and in 1821 as a state. The develop-
ment of the central west has progressed since then and is the result of
the natural locality, the physical and geological conditions, the climate
and also of man and his work. This latter begin in 1735, and seventy
years ago reached as far as Kansas City in the person of Mr. Evans,
father of our Col. J. C. Evans, of Kansas City, Mo.
From the influence of famous eastern pomologists, horticultural
societies have been organized in most of our states, and the impulse
toward study, experimenting and co-operation thus stimulated. The
exhibitions, large orchards, our advertising, the changed plans of
orcharding, of pruning, different choice of varieties — all have con-
tributed to make this central west the wonder of the world, for its
capability, adaptability, possibilities and financial ability. The pall of
soil robbery which has devastated the fertility of all our eastern land
has begun to settle upon our central west, but clover, cowpeas, alfalfa
are being utilized to their best and we hope to see the great spectre
averted and our soil fertility preserved. Each state has partaken in the
advancement.
From Wisconsin, J. C. Plumb suggested in 1877, what has already
taken place : the Northwest has indeed and according to the urgency of
the case, created a pomology of its own; new varieties adapted to its
climate have been produced both by introduction and modification of
foreign kinds, and by the origination of seedlings on its own soil, by
its own horticultural citizens. The Wisconsin Horticultural Society
maintains four trial orchards, and so its good work goes on, and not
for "Badgers" only but for neighbors as well. The horticulturists of
Minnesota share in and assist in the producing and adapting of varie-
ties ; South Dakota and other states are doing the same. All are ener-
getic and deeply in earnest. Kansas leads with a law requiring of
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 73
census takers, a collection of statistics regarding horticultural plantings
and crops in the state. The fruit men of Ohio have for three genera-
tions developed the horticultural industry there. Longworth and others
have produced new varieties and are encouraging this and other lines
of the work.
Twenty years ago Kentucky in her Horticultural Society meetings
was preaching better culture, larger attendance at meetings, less ignor-
ant and credulous acceptance of tree-peddlers' stories, more imitation of
Yankee enterprise (now we say western!), more of thrift and business
sense, more attention to details, and more love for the business. We
have climbed to a higher plane but the sermon is still good for us.
Iowa has helped along wonderfully. She has given us Budd and
Secretary Wilson and C. G. Patten. Of the latter, "He has originated
many varieties by cross-breeding," says M. J. Wragg, "that are perfectly
adapted to any good orchard soil in Iowa or south Minnesota." Mr.
Patten is honored in the presidency of the Northeast Iowa Horticul-
tural Society, and he rejoices, that "under the most trying climatic
conditions we find the most heroic efforts. Many things that were
problematical a few years ago have now become fixed facts and beyond
the experimental stage."
Colorado's fruits are sought by many, and fancy prices are the
consequence. They are. "self-sellers." Specimen boxes of apples, sen!
to Germany and Great Britain created an instant demand. Colorado is
among the leaders in effective horticultural inspection laws. The larg-
est size fruits are not desirable in Germany because they are sold by
the pound and the people there (with eight or more in family), want
more than two or three apples to the pound. This mountain state is
trying the dwarfing of peach trees, so that they can be protected in
winter. Dry-farming, it is believed, will bring to the semi-arid plains
homes, orchards and fields. Already she ships to twenty-two different
states, besides Canada and Mexico. President Coburn of the Horticul-
tural Society, says to the young men, "plant orchards, our apples are
the most perfect and longest keepers produced in America."
Oklahoma is not afraid of radical propositions in the way of
better rural education — provided that the means are immediately effec-
tive of improvement. Oklahoma's first report is a model of system,
having its subjects grouped in sections, as: The Board of Agriculture,
Gardening and Truck Farming, Fruit Growing, Field Crops, Dairying,
etc., etc. Her peaches are already known in London.
Illinois has besides its State Society, three sectional ones, for the
north, south and central portions, and fifteen experimental stations,
each specializing under its own superintendent.
Michigan was the first state to have an agricultural college. It
was established in 1857, though the Morrill bill was not signed by
President Lincoln until 1862.
The advancement along horticultural lines has been truly mar-
velous. Some of us can well remember when the shipment of fruits
from our central west began. First in a small way, but now trains
of cars carry the products of our orchards to every section of the
74 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
country. We find ourselves dazed at the tremendous bulk of this
business. Orchards small and commercial are constantly multiplying.
Fruit growers are organizing to co-operate in the business of selling.
Gathering and packing must be scientifically as also artistically done.
All divisions of the industry demand system, conservatism, knowledge
and experience — and still the plantings, the crops increase — so that
even now the railroad and refrigerator car companies are pushed to
extremities to supply the cars to carry to market the immense quan-
tities of fruit products.
"What a field of research and promise is open before us !" said
Marshal P. Wilder. "What a vast enterprise to fill our ever-expanding
area with fruits suited to our various climes ! What a noble and
benevolent work, to furnish the luscious fruits of earth for future
generations !" If after thirty years of organization President Wilder
could express wonder at the great advances made, at the opportunities
and resources before us, how much more can we, and the end not yet
in sight. Our work is of great magnitude, embracing an entire con-
tinent, opening up to us new resources and demands, and calling for
constant and untiring energy and enterprise.
"We have made great advances during the thirty-one years of our
history, and experience from the best sources is flowing in to us every
day. The spirit of investigation is now thoroughly alive, and we have
opportunities for improvement such as have never been afforded to
any other Pomological Association on the globe. Our resources are
abundant and so kindly does Nature co-operate with us under the be-
nign influence of man, that he can mould her almost to his will, and
make of the rough and acrid wilding a most beautiful and delicious
fruit, and thus go on producing indefinitely as fine varieties as we
have ever seen. When we review what has already been accomplished
in a country so varied in soil and climate, who 'can set the bounds to
our progress?"
LESSON FROM THE CANALS OF MARS.
Thirty years ago an Italian astronomer noticed what appeared to
be canals on Mars. This discovery has been verified by an American,
Percival Lowell. The lesson to us is unity. The canal system covers
the planet reaching from each polar sea to the equator. They are
constructed on geometrical lines by skilled engineering. Without them
Mars would be an arid desert, and all life would perish, but as it is,
each spring sends the water to irrigate the whole planet and great
circles and bands of vegetation come to life. What a centralization
of effort is revealed here ! What a unity of interest binding that globe !
There is evidence of thorough and sympathetic organization of all
the people in labor and love for a work that covers the entire planet.
Here is an ideal for us (for them achieved) to strive towards and be-
lieve in. Our efforts should be (and are becoming more and more)
united in study, in labor, and in recognition of the human brotherhood
on this planet, earth, of the common needs and aims of men. We
must join forces, every state with every state, every nation with every
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 75
other, every one of us with every neighbor, the near at hand and the
distant ones, all for the subdual of this star-world, that the best of life
here may be shared by each. There are many of us on this speck of
a world, but there are many yet lacking their fair share of its products,
its beauty, its joy. President Ayles worth of the Colorado Agricultural
College has said, "Let us work shoulder to shoulder with our faces
set toward a high ideal and don't let anything make us miss our goal."
OUTLINE OF SOUTHERN HORTICULTURAL CONDITIONS.
F. H. BURNETTE, BATON ROUGE, LA.
In the time given for this topic, it will be possible to touch only
a few points. Speaking from the standpoint of the middle gulf
section, there is present to-day a feeling of serious unrest in agricultural
affairs, due to the onward march of the cotton boll weevil. This insect
no doubt will eventually infest the entire field of cotton growing, and
cause a complete change in the agricultural practices of the whole sec-
tion. In this general shake-up, horticultural pursuits will receive their
share of attention. Already floods of inquiries are coming to the ex-
periment stations, seeking the best information concerning many lines
of agricultural endeavor outside of the growing of cotton. The grow-
ing of vegetables, fruits and nuts has received marked attention. The
lack of canneries and evaporators precludes the growing of the com-
mon horticultural products, except for local city use, or long-distance
trucking along the trunk lines of railways — hence there are many
things to come before this can be changed. Along the trunk lines
are large truck sections, where immense quantities of vegetables, ber-
ries, and fruits are grown and sent to the far North. These sections
are prosperous, and while the growers have difficulties to overcome,
the boll weevil and the cotton gambler are not to be found among
them. These horticultural sections are increasing in size, and with the
advent of new railway lines will become great factors in the material
welfare of the South. In Louisiana, the truck sections approximate
three millions of dollars in value of products. These products include
the vegetables, berries and oranges. The growers are now being organ-
ized, and they produce and market their crops in a systematic manner,
which insures the best returns.
The greatest disadvantage to be found is connected with the labor
question, which while it differs slightly in color from the labor ques-
tion in other sections is just as difficult to overcome. The leaders in
our horticultural affairs are taking advantage of everything that is
up-to-date in the cultivation of their crops. Improved implements are
used, intense systems of cultivation are employed and the use of the
spray pump has become familiar to them.
The newest departure in horticultural affairs is the interest that
is being developed in the pecan industry. People generally throughout
the gulf section are beginning to realize the possibilities connected with
the growing of pecans commercially. Pecan orchards are being set
76 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
with the finest varieties, and there seems every reason to believe that
the South, unrivaled as it is in the production of this, the finest nut in
the world, will reap great material benefit from the industry. Orchards
of several hundred acres are now being planted to varieties that seldom
find their way to the market to-day. The United States spends several
millions of dollars annually for nuts which are inferior to the pecan
in food value; surely there is great encouragement for this branch of
horticultural effort.
The time is ripe for other efforts along horticultural lines. Untold
quantities of various canned products are consumed in the South, that
could be grown and put up in the South. The character of the labor
to-day prevents this, but the time will come when the South will pro-
duce her share of canned goods. From a general survey of southern
conditions, surely the future is full of promise to the careful southern
horticulturist.
Chairman Taft: We have with us a gentleman from Alabama,
and I want to ask him to tell us something about the fruit and horti-
cultural conditions in Alabama. I want to call upon Professor
Mackintosh, of Auburn, Alabama.
Professor Mackintosh : I have not put my thoughts on paper and
so I cannot do justice to the subject. We have big problems to look
after and we need more light. The growing of the cotton, as one crop
system, prevails to too large a degree, but the coming of the boll weevil
is one thing that is going to change that, and getting rid of the cattle
tick, that was spoken of this morning, and I look forward to many
things to take place that will make the South very much better and
to grow better fruits than it has grown heretofore.
OUR NATIONAL FORESTS.
WM. L. HALL, WASHINGTON, D. C.
Massed together and laid over Eastern United States, the national
forests would cover New England, as far southward as the south line
of Virginia and westward including Pennsylvania and most of West
Virginia. They are not massed together, nor do they lie in Eastern
United States. They are separated into 156 unit areas, and they lie
entirely west of the Mississippi River. For the most part they are
west of the east line of Colorado. Not considering Alaska or the
insular possessions, their extent is 146 million acres, or 7 2-3 per cent,
of the total land area.
PURPOSE AND USE OF NATIONAL FORESTS.
The national forests are all portions of the national domain which
have been set aside permanently for forest production. Two great
purposes are fulfilled through a forest so set apart. It may be chiefly
valuable for the production of wood, or for the protection of the water
supply. The law underlying the establishment of national forests
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 77
recognizes both purposes, and it would be hard to say in the case of the
present national forests which purpose is of the greater importance.
A national forest, while setting apart the land for forest produc-
tion, does not withdraw it from other uses, so far as it is adapted to
them. The great industries of agriculture, mining, grazing, and lumber-
ing are not excluded, but may go on to such an extent as will not
interfere with the main purpose for which the forest is set apart.
A glance at the map of the western states shows how irregular in
most cases the boundaries of the national forests have been made in
order to include only lands of greater importance for forest than for
other purposes. The boundaries are made irregular to include the
mountain ranges and to exclude agricultural lands which lie in the
mountain parks or in valleys along the streams. But however carefully
the boundaries are located, large tracts of a million acres or more,
such as many of the national forests, can not be made entirely to
exclude agricultural lands. Recognizing this fact, the law now requires
that the agricultural lands within forest reserves shall be thrown open
for homestead entry. As rapidly as possible the national forests are
being examined, and lands suitable for agriculture are being opened
for settlement.
Mining is not inimical to forest production, and hence goes on in
the national forests unrestricted. A vigilant outlook is maintained,
however, to prevent the taking of valuable timber lands through mining
laws where no evidence of minerals exists.
The mountain ranges of the West, which constitute the national
forests, contain large areas of grazing lands. For many years these
lands have been the range of millions of live stock. Their exclusion
would mean great and unnecessary loss to the live-stock industry of
the West. On much of the forest land grazing can go on, and does
go on, to an extent not dangerous to the reproduction and growth of
the forest. During the season of 1906, 1,105,148 cattle and horses, and
5,763,100 sheep were grazed in the national forests, and the income
from grazing for the season was $550,000. Under management, the
range is rapidly improving. Its carrying capacity may be expected to
increase constantly for several years.
Lumbering also goes on in the forests belonging to the govern-
ment. As one of the prime objects of the national forests is to pro-
duce wood, it follows that this timber, when mature, must be cut and
used. There is a large amount of mature timber in the western for-
ests, and it is being cut wherever there is a demand for it. It is not
cut by the government ; it is sold on the stump to lumbermen, who
cut the trees under the supervision of the Forest Service. During 1906,
the income from lumbering was $386,000.
In addition, the forests are being used in many other ways — for
the development of water powers, for the location of hotels, stores,
summer resorts, and for various rights of way. For some of these
purposes a fee is charged.
Altogether, over a million dollars was received as returns from
the forests in 1906, which shows considerable use on the part of the
78 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
people. The use should and will greatly increase. For 1907 the income
from grazing was $875,000, as against $550,000 in 1906. The total
income for 1907 will probably be 50 per cent greater than for 1906.
Not only are these wild lands being used — they are being devel-
oped. The use which is being made of them by the public results in
development. Railroads, wagon roads, trails, canals, flumes, power
and telephone lines, reservoirs and bridges are being built, many of
them at private expense. In addition, the government itself is con-
structing many permanent improvements. During the present season
it will construct 2,200 miles of telephone line, 2,500 miles of trail, 100
bridges, 500 rangers' cabins, 200 miles of roadway, and 500 miles of
fence.
The result will be to open up the forests for greater use. New
forest and grazing areas will be made accessible and better arrange-
ments made for handling the business. The forest-system of the
government will undoubtedly be self-sustaining within a few years.
INFLUENCE OF NATIONAL FORESTS ON THE WESTERN TIMBER SUPPLY AND
ON THE PROTECTION OF WESTERN STREAMS.
There are estimated to be upwards of 350 billion feet of timber
in the national forests, an amount large enough to supply the United
States for all purposes about three and one-half years (for our annual
use is about 100 billion feet). Considering the country west of the
Mississippi River, where are found only 25 per cent of our people, the
national forests would supply wood for its uses for fourteen years.
But the main part of the trans-Mississippi timber supply, namely, about
750 billion feet, is in private hands. This total supply of 1,100 billion
feet should be sufficient for the population west of the Mississippi at
the present rate of use, for over forty years. With this large present
supply and the great area which the Government from this time on
will have under protection and management, it is safe to conclude that
the timber supply for the western part of the country is on a fairly
good basis.
Considering stream protection, we may note that every important
western stream which rises in the high mountains has its headwaters
protected by national forests. There will be no further denudation of
these important watersheds. The timber, while of course it will be
cut, will be cut conservatively, without impairing in any degree the
protective value of the forest cover. Protection from fire will result
in the reproduction of the forest in some localities where it has been
swept away. Important watersheds where natural reproduction is hope-
less will be planted. The western water supply, like the western timber
supply, is in good condition, and will be constantly improved for many
years, because of the protective influence of the national forests.
SHOULD THE NATIONAL FORESTS BE EXTENDED TO THE EASTERN STATES ?
The states east of the Mississippi originally were almost entirely
wooded with the finest commercial timbers — white pine in the North,
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 79
hardwoods in the central states, and yellow pine in the South. It needs
not to be repeated how these forests have been cut and destroyed. These
states are estimated to contain now only about 900 billion feet of
lumber, which, according to our present rate of use, means only twelve
to fifteen years' supply.
The Federal Government has no forests anywhere east of the
Mississippi. The states have reserved about two and one-half million
acres. All the rest is under private ownership, which system has re-
sulted in the reduction of the commercial forest from the original to
the present condition. Private ownership shows little evidence of
changing from the original methods of exploitation. Lumbering still
means the exhaustion of the forest. Over most of the region fires still
burn without hindrance. The forest is being used faster than ever
before. The increase in the use of wood equals if indeed it does not
exceed the increase in population. As an index of the changed situa-
tion in the timber supply in the eastern states in ten years, one has
but to note that the prices of our leading woods have advanced from
25 to 75 per cent.
From whatever side the timber situation in the eastern states is
viewed, one is forced irresistibly to the conclusion that remedial meas-
ures must be taken, and that quickly, or we shall be in the midst of a
timber famine.
The only remedy yet proposed which meets the situation is for the
Federal Government to undertake the establishment of national forests
in the eastern states similar in purpose to those in the West. There
is but one region in the East where such a system could properly be
established — the Appalachian Mountains. This is the only region in
the East more valuable for timber than for other crops and at the
same time the source of important interstate streams.
EASTERN NATIONAL FORESTS WOULD HELP TIMBER SUPPLY.
The importance of national forests to help the eastern timber sup-
ply, especially the hardwood supply, needs strong emphasis. Although
the Appalachians bear pine, spruce and hemlock, they are essentially a
hardwood region. They probably contain more than half the nation's
available supply of hardwoods, and in 1906 they furnished 46 per cent
of the country's hardwood lumber. The Appalachians are the only
hardwood region we shall have in the future. In other regions hard-
woods stand upon agricultural soil, where the forest must rapidly
give way to farming. The Appalachians are fundamentally a forest
region. They are profitable for no other use. Farming fails, fruit-
growing fails, and likewise grazing, because in the principal moun-
tains a cover of grass is insufficient to hold the soil in place.
Through poor methods of cutting and lack of protection, the en-
tire region is producing but little wood compared with what it might
produce. The great value of the government forests, so far as timber
is concerned, would be that they would allow the mountains to produce
the timber which they are capable of producing and of which the coun-
80 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
try from this time on will stand in greatest need. There is no question
but that with right management the Appalachian Mountains would
produce permanently 75 per cent of the hardwood timber required in
the United States.
The need of Appalachian forest reserves from the standpoint of
hardwood timber supply is a great national need, affecting directly all
the people of the United States.
IMPORTANT FOR STREAM PROTECTION.
The number of important rivers which rise in the Appalachians
far exceeds those which have their source in the western mountains,
and they directly affect the welfare of a vastly greater number of peo-
ple. As the forests have been cleared from the mountains everywhere
in the Appalachians, the extremes of high and low water have been
increased, water powers have decreased in efficiency, mountain slopes
have been eroded, and the sediment has tilled the streams and harbors
below, navigation has been retarded, and property along the streams
has suffered damage from the increased Hoods. It is difficult to realize
the damage which is possible in these directions. The United States
Weather Uureau made a ran- ful estimate of the damage along the Ohio
River in the tloods of January and March of this year, and found that
the properly loss, not including damage to soil and river channel,
amounted to $<),«.)()(),()()(). To this must be added also the loss of time,
which in itself would amount to millions, and the depreciation of
rentals, which in J'ittsburg alone has amounted to a huge sum. Taken
together, this represents but the loss during three months in two tribu-
taries of the Ohio River. It is but little compared with the losses we
must expect over the whole region if the mountains are not kept under
forest.
Correspondingly great will be the gain to our industries if the
nation does hold these mountains for purposes for which Nature in-
tended them.
A NUMBER OF APPALACHIAN FORESTS NECESSARY.
How extensive and where the Appalachian forests will have to be,
no one knows at present. Acting under instructions from Congress,
the Forest Service is now preparing a report in which these points
will be covered. This report will be submitted at the next session of
Congress.
To protect the important watersheds there must be, not one great
area in some particular part of the mountains, leaving other sections
unprotected, but a number of areas, each large enough and properly
located to protect one or more important streams. Such reserves
would have to be irregular in outline, and would frequently be discon-
nected. While serving for the protection of streams they would also
improve the timber supply. The fact that they may be scattered would
also be of advantage in that the timber could more readily be distrib-
uted from them.
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 81
This assumes that the timber from these reserves will be cut as
it reaches maturity. It is needed and must be used. But we may re-
member this, that the mature timber can be cut and the forest be in
no wise injured in its protective, scenic, or sanitary value. This is the
advantage of forestry over lumbering.
OBJECTIONS.
As with all national movements, objections have been raised against
government forests in the Appalachians. Fortunately, these objections
can be met. Some of them are as follows :
1. The government would have to buy the land.
This is true. The title to the land has passed to private hands.
Unlike the case of the western national forests, the government would
have to buy and pay for the land before it can take it under control.
But the money would not be lost. It would begin to come back in a
few years, just as the money comes back which the government invests
in the irrigation of western lands. Timber land is so sure an invest-
ment, that the government stands to gain rather than lose in the un-
dertaking. Had it purchased these lands eight years ago, when the
matter was first pressed, its profits already would have amounted to
millions.
2. Such an undertaking would lead to endless expenditure on
account of the vast areas to be purchased.
The Forest Service is covering this point in its present investiga-
tion and will report to Congress next winter the extent of the lands
which should be purchased. Congress will then be able to see the size
of the undertaking before it begins it.
3. It is a problem for the several states, not the Federal Gov-
ernment.
So far as the forests are necessary to insure the timber supply,
it is by no means a state problem. It is incumbent upon no state to
provide a timber supply for the rest of the country. So far as the
forests are necessary to protect the watersheds of interstate streams,
it is not a state but a federal problem. By no sort of logic can it be
established that North Carolina must protect the headwaters of the
Yadkin and Catawba Rivers because the water powers of South Caro-
lina are being damaged, nor that West Virginia must protect the
Monongahela because Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky suffer on ac-
count of the floods which arise on its denuded watersheds. Practically
all the important Appalachian streams are interstate streams. Both
from the standpoint of timber supply and stream protection, the situa-
tion is one which distinctly calls for federal action.
4. Appropriations for this purpose will open the door to fraud.
In the light of the government's experience with its present com-
mercial operations, this objection cannot be supported. The govern-
ment to-day through its own employees is conducting far larger enter-
prises without the slightest trace of corruption, indeed in the settled
conviction that it is thereby pursuing the most economical course.
82 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
Government engineers are building the Panama Canal and great irri-
gation works ; are building them cheaper, better and faster than private
capital could build them. Government engineers and architects are
building great battleships; are building them as efficient in all respects
and as cheaply and quickly as private contractors can do.
Let it not be said that the government cannot handle large busi-
ness affairs. Present experience shows that it can. If it can dig the
Panama Canal, construct great irrigation systems, and build enormous
battleships, it can purchase and manage the lands necessary for national
forests in the Appalachian Mountains.
EVENING SESSION.
CHAIRMAN, PROFESSOR S. A. BEACH.
CIVIC HORTICULTURE AND CIVIC IMPROVEMENT.
WARREN H. MANNING, BOSTON, MASS.
Civic improvement is the work that organizations and individuals
plan and execute to improve their surroundings and civic horticulturists
are they who so cultivate ornamental plants in public or private grounds
as to give pleasure and benefit to the public as well as themselves.
Ornamental plants become in the hands of the civic horticulturists the
garments of civic improvement, for they clothe parks, buildings, lawns,
streets and landscapes.
The broadest aspect of the civic improvement movement, however,
lies in permanently preserving and improving the natural beauty of a
region and securing convenient and attractive access thereto for all
citizens. Toward this end vast numbers of powerful interests have been
unconsciously working while they have at the same time been destroy-
ing nature.
Railroads are now the national parkways to nearly all sections hav-
ing special landscape interests, and they recognize very clearly the value
of such interests as an asset in the extension of their lines, in the
acquirement of land adjoining their right of way to protect beautiful
outlooks and in the almost universal improvement of right of way and
station grounds; they often are the only attractive objects in unattrac-
tive outlooks. Their rails have now largely superseded the river and
canal with all their charm for the traveler, but having a limited out
look, as compared with the rapidly shifting vistas and broad panoramas
of the train.
Electric roads, state roads, merging into national roads are open
ing up regions of even greater beauty and variety and electric cars and
automobiles are making the range of pleasure driving so wide now that
a fraction of a day's ride only is required to cover a city park system,
although some cities have included therein as much as one-sixth of their
total area and the average park area of the fourteen cities above 300,000
population is one in twenty-eight acres.
City systems have broadened to county systems, as in Essex County,
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 83
New Jersey, and the Boston Metropolitan system extends into four
counties. There are also many state parks, water supply, irrigation and
forestry reservations of a thousand acres more or less, national military
reservations of various kinds — some of six thousand acres or more,
and the national forest reserves of 140,000,000 acres.
The engineers, civil, railroad, hydraulic, army and others ; — the for-
ester, the landscape designer, industrial concerns, real estate men and
many men in business and professional life, who have urged or directed
movements for public reservations have been responsible for much
of this.
The horticulturists have generally taken an interest in this work
and the profession^ that have been especially identified with the devel-
opment of public reservation systems ; such as the designers of land-
scapes and foresters, have been quite largely recruited from the horti-
culturists' ranks. Dr. John A. Warder, who first warned against
forest destruction and organized one of the first national forestry
associations, was a horticulturist. The Honorable J. Sterling Morton,
who established Arbor Day, was a farmer. Frederick Law Olmsted,
who established the modern practice of designing landscapes, went from
his farm to plan and build Central Park in New York.
I have indicated progress already made toward a national system
of public reservations, that will include and connect the present isolated
holdings, as well as a large share of land having great natural beauty,
but from which little revenue can be produced from crops or industries
under private ownership. It is such land of little value that should be
included in public reservations, rather than that having a high produc-
tive and taxable value.
The permanent value of such work in any locality is greatly enhanced
if the town and the individuals direct their efforts toward the ultimate
completion of a comprehensive plan that has been carefully studied out
in advance. Such a plan ought to be made to fit the surface, that is,
to take advantage of the natural beauty of surface, contour, rock out-
crop, water and vegetation, transportation lines, drainage, buildings and
other artificial structures, and provide for the future development of
such features in a way that will gain for the community the maximum
of convenience and beauty, with a minimum of expenditure in con-
struction and maintenance. Such plans should, of course, be sufficiently
elastic to provide for the contingencies of time. Generally in such a
plan upon an irregular surface, roads would follow valleys, gradually
climb the slopes on curving lines and easy grades with a minimum of
cut and fill, while on flat lands they would be straight with diagonals
running from centres on lines of greatest travel.
This outline of the broader aspect of civic improvement should lead
to a greater appreciation of the importance of civic horticulture. Each
horticulturist, and you will note that my definition may include about
every one who can control a piece of land or a window box, should
be vitally interested in and help to advance the civic improvement move-
ment of his own locality. The work of landscape and ornamental gar-
deners, employed by towns and commissions, is planned and executed
84 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
for the public benefit and many owners of private land do consider the
public interest in the arrangement and planting of their own ground ;
this even to their own disadvantage when they throw their own
grounds wholly open to public gaze.
If this civic horticultural work could be directed toward the ulti-
mate execution of the preconceived plan referred to above, very
much more effective results would come from the same expenditure
of effort and money. In such a plan, after main subdivisions, the
means of intercommunication, park, garden and play-ground reserva-
tions, the location of civic and other centres, are prepared to cover
the town site and its future extension, there should follow detailed
plans and estimates. Of these the civic horticulturist would be espe-
cially interested in :
(1) The treatment of natural vegetation to develop its greatest
beauty and usefulness and the treatment of artificial plantations. Upon
such details would be indicated roads, trails, vistas, thinning, the
selection of trees and shrubs and the additional plantations of exotic
trees, shrubs and herbs.
(2) Street plans, showing trees best suited to each street and an
arrangement of trees that will give desirable uniformity, but not nec-
essarily a uniform spacing that disregards egress and outlook from
private places.
(3) Suggestions for the treatment of front lawns that in resi-
dential sections are so often kept open through the length of the street,
giving a greater breadth and openness that distinguishes our streets
in a manner that is distinctly American. The objection, however, to
this is, that the owner has no privacy in his home grounds.
(4) Suggestions to owners to overcome the above objection by
establishing screening plantations between the front lawn that is held
open for the pleasure of the public and the back lawn and gardens
made private for the family.
(5) Suggestions regarding the use of enough of one plant in
these private plantations to give each street a special distinction. One
street for example having lilacs at intervals throughout its length,
another magnolias, another hydrangeas, etc.
It is such suggestions to the general public, backed by an efficient
organization and a definite plan, that will help to make the whole town
a park and secure the active interest and assistance of all citizens. I
conceive it to be the duty of village improvement societies and park
superintendents to direct their attention to the preparation of such
an organization and plan rather than to expend all their efforts and
money on a small area or upon minor improvements at haphazard, or
upon general clearing up operations, street lighting, and the like, that
should be executed by the town officers, through their regular
appropriations.
There is now a rapid trend toward the ideal I have outlined, 'not
only in cities, but in many small towns. My own experience is that
with such plans and public interest, the whole aspect of a community
will be transformed in from five to eight years. There must of course
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 85
be a leader in the movement, however, who is big enough to grasp the
whole conception and persistent enough to hold fast against criticism
until it is well under way. It always means self-sacrificing effort on
the part of the few, as does any advanced movement for the general
welfare, but the results and the ultimate general approval of those
whose opinions are of value, will well repay this effort. I believe it
is not necessary, however, to place the work on a sentimental ground
for almost invariably the execution of a well considered plan leads to
increases in land values that make it a good business proposition.
No body of men are in a better position than the ones before me
to advance such work, for many of you are educators in charge of
parks, experiment stations, schools and large horticultural establish-
ments frequented by many people of influence and education. You can
help advance the school garden and vacant lot farms, one of the most
potent new agencies for the development of efficient civic horticultural
knowledge among the mass of people. You can lead in the prepara-
tion of such plans as I have outlined. You can supply a vast amount
of useful information through bulletins and catalogues to those that
you reach directly.
There is need in the promotion of the work of civic horticulturists
of a better class of material for plantations. We need pedigree trees of
various species. I need not describe to you the numerous forms of
the American elm. Some with upright trunks and branches and a
graceful canopy of foliage forming ideal street trees. Others round
and symmetrical. Others drooping to the ground. These forms of the
American elm are not cultivated. We only have forms of European
trees propagated at high cost by grafting and offered in small quan-
tities. We need also the various marked forms of the red cedar, some
very narrowly fastigiate, others broad spreading, for our formal
gardens.
Those who know how many of the nursery purple beeches and
Weir's cut leaf maple are raised from seed and who have noted the
predominance of a special form of native trees about the parent will
recognize the practicability of raising pedigree trees.
More care is needed to secure hardy forms of native trees. For
example, trees of the Douglass spruce from the Oregon and California
coast range are not hardy in the East, whereas those from the Rocky
Mountains are. Black walnut, red-buds, calycanthus and other plants
further north are quite hardy.
There is need of a more general knowledge of the value of native
collected plants in artificial plantations and the success which attends
the collection of many species if done in a proper manner. It opens
the way for pleasure outings in which the family may secure material
for the decoration of their home grounds and wild gardens. When
you know that practically all the trees, shrubs and hardy perennials
planted upon these Exposition Grounds are natives collected on or near
these grounds; that many of the ground cover plants were collected
in the beginning at the cost of thirty cents per thousand, the decidu-
ous shrubs collected and planted as low as $20.00 per thousand, you
86 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
will recognize that the natives may fill a place both as regards cost
and immediate effect that nursery plants cannot fill
Nurserymen should grow more well furnished large specimens of
shrubs and trees, more large and well trained vines, more formally
trained shrubs and trees for gardens and pots and they should recog-
nize that there is a growing demand for the healthy vigorous forms
that are easily propagated and can be sold at a low rate in large quan-
tities, and a declining demand for abnormal horticultural forms that
are expensive and difficult to propagate.
In closing let me call attention to the statement of the morning's
session regarding the need of a greater unity of action of all the
various occupations represented by this Congress.
Mr. Withers : Mr. Chairman, I should be glad to say a few words
in reference to Mr. Manning's able paper on Civic Improvements. 1
have been connected with civic improvement work in different parts
of this country for some years, and I heartily endorse all that Mr.
Manning has said.
There is one subject that I am particularly interested in just now,
and that is the treatment and care of the trees in different towns and
cities of the United States. I am at this time engaged on the restora-
tion of one of the largest and most historical trees in the country,
which is called the "Liberty Tree of Maryland." It is a tulip tree
(Liriodendron tulipifera). It is 104 feet 3 inches high, 37 feet 3 inches
in circumference, at the base. It has a cavity which is open on one
side to a height of 20 feet, the opening will average 4 feet in width.
After cleaning out the decayed wood, it leaves the tree standing on a
shell the average thickness of which is about 15 inches. This great
cavity extends from the main trunk up into a huge branch the entire
length of which is fifty feet six inches from the ground level. After
cleaning it out and washing with a fungicide we filled this great
cavity with reinforced concrete, fifty-one tons of sand, stone, bricks,
cement and iron being used. The foundation of this concrete centre
extended 2J/£ feet below the surface of the ground. The age of this
tree is estimated at over six hundred years. It was under this tree
that the treaty between the Colonists and the Susquehannock Indians
was signed in 1654. The Liberty speech was made here about 177G,
General Washington being present at the time. A reception was given
to General Lafayette in its shade in 1825. In 1820 a native of Annap-
olis, a Mr. Claude, wrote an ode dedicated to this old tree bidding it
good-bye because he thought it could not live much longer. He spoke
of its crumbling away, which proves that a great cavity must have
existed at that time in its base.
During the Civil WTar the soldiers were encamped around the tree,
the college building being used for hospitals, and while the soldiers
were encamped there a large branch fell, tearing away a great piece
out of its side, causing the cavity to extend upward. Our filling is
now in place, and there are no dead limbs, or decayed spots, that have
not been removed or treated. With a slight feeding, I think, the tree
is good for another five or six hundred years. I mention my work in
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 87
this connection because, I think, it is the largest undertaking of its
kind ever attempted. I also think that it is the largest tree anywhere
in the eastern or middle states, and should be glad, if any member
of the Council, should he find a larger one, let me know of it.
We are also treating a fine avenue of tulip trees on the estate of
Mr. James T. Woodward, at Collington, Md. ; amongst them are some
giants, one or two of them being about nine feet in diameter with
some very bad cavities to fill. We are also treating the street and
campus trees around St. John's College, Annapolis, Md. Here I find
great damage done to the trees by the wires of the electric light,
telephone and telegraph companies ; they having used the trees as guys
for their poles, the wires are girdling and fast killing the huge branches,
and in many cases the entire tree. I called the attention of the author-
ities to this fact, and advised them that the companies should remove
their wires, but if they wished to accommodate the different companies
by allowing them to use the trees as guys for their poles they could do
so without any injury to the tree, and I showed them how an eye-
bolt could be put through the tree using a plate and nut at the strain-
ing point, which we would countersink into the tree, and then cap
with cement, so that the bark would grow over the bolt. The com-
panies could then transfer their wires from the tree to the eye of
this bolt, which would give them a much more perfect guy than the
ruinous method adopted. All parties were very much pleased with
this suggestion, and the companies authorized us at once to place the
bolts in position at their expense.
I think that every town and city in the United States should insist
wherever the wires of the electric light, telephone or telegraph must
run through or near the trees that the running of these wires through
the trees and the guying of the poles to the trees should be done under
the supervision of a competent forester. In doing so the trees could
be utilized without any injury to them whatever.
The preservation of the tree, I think, is one of the essentials of
civic improvement. Mr. Manning in his article mentioned the fact
unknown to the general public, that there was a great deal of private
interest in civic improvements. This is, I think, clearly shown in the
case that I have called to your attention.
The work I am doing on the old Liberty tree at Annapolis is the
gift of James T. Woodward, of the Hanover National Bank of New
York. Mr. Woodward is much interested in St. John's College, and
in the old Liberty tree. Few people realize how great a gift this
work is.
LANDSCAPE GARDENING.
JOHN C. OLMSTED, BROOKLINE, MASS.
Landscape Gardening is the art of improving grounds for use
and enjoyment with due regard to beauty.
Landscape gardeners should be educated in architecture, civil engi-
neering, and horticulture— in architecture, because all works of land-
88 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
scape gardening should be designed or planned in a way analogous
to that in which buildings are planned to combine utility with beauty;
in civil engineering, because to plan the improvement of ground involves
surveys, topographical maps, draughting of plans, profiles, cross sec-
tions, drainage and masonry plans, specifications and other technical
training such as civil engineers get; in horticulture (including arbori-
culture), because almost every landscape gardening design calls for
either trees, grass, shrubs, vines, hardy and tender plants or some or
all of these.
To many it may seem unreasonable to place, in the education of
landscape gardeners, a training in architectural design ahead of a
knowledge of civil engineering and of horticulture. It is true that
most of the time of architectural students and practitioners is taken
up with matters that would be of comparatively little or no use to
the landscape gardener, but in the absence of adequate means for
thoroughly educating landscape gardeners in the esthetic side of their
profession, a training in architectural design is at present the best
available for the purpose. It must not be inferred that architects can
easily practice landscape gardening. The fact that they appreciate
certain fundamental esthetic principles, no more fits them to prac-
tice landscape gardening than landscape painting or any other art to
which those principles apply. It is certainly better that most architects
should confine themselves to architecture.
Civil engineers should not be too much elated by the statement
that a good knowledge of and experience in certain branches of civil
engineering is more important in the education of landscape gardeners
in the ability to design well than horticultural knowledge. Indeed
such a claim may seem paradoxical when we call to mind how many
obstrusively ugly works of civil engineering there are in all parts of
this country, and on the other hand how much horticulturists are con-
cerned with beautiful flowers and garden plants.
The reason why a certain kind of engineering knowledge is more
important to the landscape gardener than horticulture, as a means of
developing his general designing ability, is that it has to do with larger
and more complex problems of fitting land for human use.
The ability required to successfully design important municipal,
railroad, river, canal and harbor works and other extensive plants,
involves a capacity for investigating physical and human and finan-
cial conditions, requirements and limitations and for evolving a logical
solution of each problem which is similar in a' general way to the
capacity possessed by successful architects. Engineering schools do
more to educate that capacity than the ordinary methods of educat-
ing horticulturists do.
The most essential esthetic requirement of conspicuous works of
civil engineering is that they should accomplish their purposes in an
appropriate, pleasing and satisfactory way, — not that they should be
made pretty by means of ornament applied as an after-thought.
The main object of this paper is to call the attention of horticul-
turists to that particular idea — the importance of the esthetic princi-
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE
89
pie that all visible works of man should be expressive and beautiful
in their general form and main features before they are ornamented
with mere decorative detail.
Esthetic ideas are difficult to explain without illustrations.
Among large constructions, we find a general regard for good
appearance has always controlled ship builders. They made many mis-
takes, from a scientific point of view; they did not always make fast
ships; they compelled sailors and passengers to submit to unnecessary
inconveniences; but they strove always for such beauty of form and
outline of hull and fittings, rake of masts, taper of spars, cut of sails
that sailing vessels have always been the delight of artists. And how
conspicuously absent is all surface decoration and applied ornament!
It is shocking to imagine the hideous job the engineer of an ele-
vated railroad would make of an order to build and rig a steel sail-
ing ship, if he should entirely ignore the traditions of ship building
and use stock dimension rolled steel beams, bars, angle irons, tubes,
rods, and so forth, as he uses them in his elevated railroad trusses
and columns and brackets ! How much simpler and cheaper it would
be for the deck of a ship to be straight from bow to stern and to pitch
straight from center to sides like a flat tin roof! Yet all the demands
of the shrewd owners for economy, and all the power of competition
were unable to make shipwrights for countless generations build a
ship that way. They knew it would be ugly and they wouldn't do it.
The beauty of the typical sailing vessel is a good illustration of
the superiority of beauty of form and proportion, of graceful adapta-
tion to useful purposes over a purely scientific and economical but
ugly general form superficially decorated. Let us hope that investors
and public opinion will more and more encourage civil engineers to
take to heart this great esthetic principle that visible structures should
be beautiful in form whether there is superficial decoration or not.
If a knowledge of horticulture and its allied crafts and sciences is
to be regarded as less essential to the landscape gardener than a train-
ing in general architectural designing and in certain selected branches
of civil engineering, it is not intended thereby to belittle the import-
ance of a practical knowledge of hardy trees and other plants used in
landscape gardening works and of their cultivation, cost and esthetic
qualities. Such knowledge is absolutely essential.
The point sought to be enforced is that the landscape gardener
should be educated to design first the general plan for a given work,
then its constituent parts and details in such a way that they will
produce a consistent, well balanced, harmonious whole and to always
keep in mind that the inherent, essential beauty of the whole, and its
obvious and graceful adaptation to its main purposes are far more
important than its superficial ornamentation.
Horticulture is the art of the cultivation of garden plants as dis-
tinguished from farm cfops. Those horticulturists who raise or sell
plants for their beauty are florists. Most florists advise as to or direct
the use of ornamental plants. Many florists also branch out into the
practice of landscape gardening because their technical knowledge
90 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
enables them to do so well enough to satisfy those who employ them.
Similarly druggists sell drugs without prescriptions of physicians, deal-
ers sell spectacles without prescriptions of professional oculists.
Nevertheless all who can afford it should get advice on matters
of landscape design from the best available professional landscape
gardener, just as they should get advice as to matters of health from
a competent physician. Florists should therefore avoid competing with
competent landscape gardeners.
This principle of specialization of knowledge and its application
to human affairs is well known to florists, but for one reason or an-
other they do and will continue to practice landscape gardening and it
must be acknowledged that to a certain extent and under certain circum-
stances they are justified in doing so.
The direction in which the work of florists in the field of land-
scape gardening is usually most open to criticism is in its esthetic
qualities.
The mind of the florist is usually occupied either by practical
details or in considering the beauty of particular flowers or plants.
This tends to unfit him as a landscape designer. If he is to practice
landscape gardening, he should subordinate beauty of plants to the
beauty of the composition or design as a whole. In doing so he can-
not succeed unless he studies first the requirements of the case, the
utilization of its opportunities for landscape beauty, its financial lim-
itations and so on. Then he must form in his mind, or on paper, a
general plan or solution of the problem embodying such qualities as
fitness, harmony, contrast, simplicity or intricacy, proportion, relation
of masses, colors and so on.
But even if he refrains from designing landscape the florist should
be an artist.
The very existence of florists depends upon the public demand for
beautiful flowers and garden plants. If the florist is to succeed in
the esthetic side of his business he must be endowed with certain
esthetic faculties and cultivate them to the point of efficiency. A mere
love of flowers is not sufficient, any more than an ear for music would
indicate the existence of the qualities required for a successful
musician. There must be the power to observe and study, to imagine
combinations and modifications of things seen or learned of, to men-
tally test them by various standards and rules and by the known effects
of similar things that have been or can be seen. There must be the
critical faculty, the weighing of advantages and disadvantages, the
power to curb impulses and first impressions until reason has passed
judgment. Perception, selection, memory, imagination, reason, appli-
cation, patience and above all, will power, are some of the more im-
portant qualities required for a successful designing florist. All these
faculties gain by experience and training and by a favorable
environment.
The visual memory must be stored with beautiful things. Nature
is a great storehouse of beautiful things, as well as of ugly things,
so a lad should be brought up in a beautiful bit of country rather
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 91
than amid long blocks of plain brick houses. But there is much in
nature that is beautiful that cannot be used in the florist's work.
Lichens and toadstools, for instance, include varieties having beautiful
colors, yet they are not used in carpet bedding owing to practical
difficulties. Therefore the visual memory is stored by visiting gardens
and exhibitions, and by studying illustrations, horticultural books and
trade catalogues.
The selective faculty is trained by determining what is worth
remembering. We must put some things in the front row of the
memory, so to speak, where they can be availed of instantaneously.
Other things are set behind and labeled by some bit of detail, a leaf
or a bit of color or a word or a taste or smell or by name. For very
many things that may be useful the memory must refer back to the
cyclopedia, an indexed periodical, a scrap book, so and so's catalogue,
and so on.
The visual memory is trained by repetition, by close application
forced by the will power. It is aided by association with other sen-
sations, by the sentiments, by novelty, by superlative characteristics
and so on.
The imagination is based on memory. We can imagine nothing
that has not come into our minds through the senses or that is not due
to some combination of ideas previously so gained. Hence the im-
portance of storing the memory with things worth remembering. The
imagination must be guided by reason and will power to be useful,
but it must be exercised and developed mainly in youth, even by the
aid of beautiful things that are not useful. The imagination is stimu-
lated by beautiful things to imagine other beautiful combinations and
modifications. An ancient necklace or a decorated book cover, seen
in a museum of art, may excite the imagination many years after in
the designing of flower decoration. That may be both a pleasant and
a useful training of the young florist's imagination, but the study of
veined marble, or cloud effects or a specimen of marine alga might
be pleasant but probably useless to the florist.
The reasoning faculty may be trained in various ways, but may
best be trained by the study of cause and effect in the natural sciences
dealing with the materials to be handled or controlled by the florist.
If he learns scientifically why certain color combinations are pleasing
and certain others displeasing he can act as the result of reasoning
when the time comes instead of trusting to his own sensations or to
what people say or to tradition. If he has studied agricultural chem-
istry and plant physiology and meteorology he may sometimes avoid
mistakes which others fall into through the misapplication of tradi-
tional wise saws, which often for the sake of brevity or of a catching
rhyme convey a half truth or even a falsehood.
The training of other faculties need not be enlarged upon. The
inference to be drawn is that if the florist is to have such an educa-
tion as will fit him to produce beautiful floral decoration and to make
his vocation compare in esthetic standing with that of the architect
and the artist, mural decorator and (let no offense be taken) the
92 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
landscape architect, he should cultivate his creative esthetic faculties
at least as thoroughly and by much the same means of art schools,
museums, reading, converse with artists, travel and observation and by
the solution of many problems of artistic design.
HORTICULTURAL SCHOOLS AND EXPERIMENT STATIONS.
DR. A. C. TRUE, WASHINGTON, D. C.
In the United States education and research in horticulture are
mainly carried on in connection with the state agricultural colleges
and experiment stations and the United States Department of Agri-
culture. Some horticultural work is done by all of the sixty experi-
ment stations in the continental United States and in Alaska, Hawaii,
and Porto Rico, except in the State of Wyoming, whose station is
located more than 7,000 feet above sea level and has thus far under
taken work in only a few restricted lines of plant production. As
reported to the Office of Experiment Stations for 1906 the stations
employed 101 horticulturists. The station work in horticulture covers
a very wide range. It includes all branches of horticulture and a
great variety of horticultural plants, both in the greenhouse and in
the field. It ranges from an attempt to select and develop plants suited
to arctic conditions, as in part of Alaska, to experiments with man-
goes, cacao, coffee, and numerous other tropical plants, as in Hawaii
and Porto Rico. Practically all kinds of horticultural plants suited to
temperate and semi-tropical conditions are receiving some attention.
As regards its character, the work varies from scientific research of a
high order on fundamental problems, for the determination of general
principles or underlying causes, to the simplest practical tests of varie-
ties and cultural methods. In addition, our stations are doing a con-
siderable amount of work in chemistry, botany, vegetable pathology,
and entomology directly relating to horticulture.
All but seven of the- stations are organized as departments of the
agricultural colleges and are thus brought into close relations with,
and in fact are usually in organic union with, the horticultural depart-
ments of instruction in these colleges.
The methods and results of station horticultural work are there-
fore easily and naturally brought to the attention of students of hor-
ticulture in these institutions, and many of these students have some
participation in the station work. The progress of agricultural research
in horticulture in foreign countries, as well as in the United States, is
systematically reported every month to our horticultural investigators,
teachers and students through the Experiment Station Record so that
on its information side at least there is little excuse if instruction in
horticulture in this country does not keep pace with the progress of
horticultural research throughout the world.
Practically all the agricultural colleges give some instruction in
horticulture. The extent and scope of this instruction varies greatly
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 93
in different institutions. We have yet at least one living example
of such a monstrosity as a professor of agriculture, horticulture and
botany, and in a number of colleges, and even in a university, one man
has plenty of room to recline at full length on the settee of two such
vast subjects as horticulture and forestry. But we are doing better
than we used to in this respect, and in recent years the general move-
ment for the differentiation and specialization of agricultural sub-
jects and instructors has affected and greatly benefited horticultural
courses in our colleges.
Fourteen colleges announce four-year horticultural courses in con-
nection with which an effort has been made to systematize instruction
in horticulture and co-ordinate the work in this subject with that in
other subjects in the curriculum so as to make a more or less satis-
factory technical course.
In addition, several state universities have broad elective courses
and offer a sufficient number of courses in various branches of horti-
culture to enable the student to arrange quite thorough technical
courses and even to specialize to a considerable extent in some horti-
cultural line to which he proposes to devote himself as a profession.
In some of the colleges the course which horticultural students
must pursue in seeking a bachelor's degree is prescribed during two or
three years and electives are offered in the third and fourth years in
such a way as to enable the student to specialize in horticulture at
least to a certain extent.
Short courses in horticulture are offered by 19 colleges. These
courses vary in duration from two years to two weeks.
At the University of Illinois, where the elective system prevails,
29 courses are offered under the head of horticulture, besides a some-
what elaborate professional course in landscape gardening. Five of
these courses are of a general and somewhat elementary character, 19
are for advanced undergraduates and graduates, and five are exclu-
sively for graduates.
Among the special courses in this list are those in spraying, viti-
culture, nut culture, evolution of horticultural plants, experimental
horticulture, amateur floriculture, and landscape design. Two courses
in forestry are also included under horticulture.
The horticultural faculty proper includes one professor, three
assistant professors, and one instructor. There is no professor of
horticulture, but a professor and an assistant professor of pomology, as-
sistant professor of olericulture, assistant professor of landscape gar-
dening and an instructor in floriculture. The professor of botany and
two field assistants in pomology also take part in the horticultural
instruction.
Cornell University offers 13 courses in horticulture and the hor-
ticultural faculty consists of one professor, one assistant professor and
two instructors.
The University of Missouri offers 9 courses, given by one profes-
sor, one assistant professor, and two instructors.
94 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
Michigan Agricultural Colleges offer 17 courses (two of which
are especially for women), given by one professor and four instructors.
Massachusetts Agricultural College offers 9 courses, given by one
professor and three instructors, and is making special effort to develop
work in landscape gardening.
The University of California, with a horticultural faculty of two
professors, two assistant professors, and one instructor, offers 8
courses, two of which are for graduate students.
The University of Ohio and the Texas Agricultural College, with
one professor and one assistant professor, each offer 13 courses in
horticulture.
While there are certain advantages, as regards the higher lines of
work in the organization of horticultural courses in connection with
colleges and universities, the instruction in such institutions will inevit-
ably be largely of a theoretical and severely technical character. It
should, therefore, be supplemented by the establishment of special
horticultural schools in which young men and women may be trained
for the practical business of horticulture. Some attempts have been
made to do this in this country, but we have not as yet any horticul-
tural schools of this character which will compare with those at
Ghent and Vilvorde in Belgium, or the National School of Horticul-
ture at Versailles, France.
The station horticulturists are doing a large amount of useful
work and they enjoy in large measure the confidence and esteem of
practical horticulturists. With the increase of the resources of the
stations they are getting better facilities for work, and are enabled to
specialize .more and to undertake more substantial enterprises. They
are now giving more attention to problems connected with a broader
organization of their work and with the conduct of more fundamental
investigations. On the one hand they desire to cover more completely
the field of horticulture and on the other to establish the practice of
horticulture more securely on a rational and scientific basis. To accom-
plish the first of these objects, the necessity for more workers and
increased specialization is apparent. To attain the second there will
be required the multiplication of more thorough investigations and the
acquirement more largely of the scientific spirit and attitude.
Besides the special studies made by individual workers, there
should be a broad inquiry, preferably by some organization of horti-
culturists, with a view to determining in a general way the scope and
limitations of scientific horticultural work. In other words there
should be an organized effort to define and establish a science of horti-
culture, differentiated from, but indissolubly linked with the practice of
horticulture. This is all the more important because the great body of
practical horticulturists embraces more intelligent and progressive men
than any other great group of workers in the general field of agricul-
ture. I have lately heard of one of our leading scientific horticultur-
ists expressing his difficulty in keeping pace with the professional ad-
vancement of practical horticulturists and doubting whether there were
any subjects to be discussed among scientific horticulturists which
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 95
might not be just as well discussed in assemblies of practical horticul-
turists. I do not believe that he expected to be taken too literally, but
there is food for thought in this remark.
To achieve and maintain leadership the experiment station horticul-
turists must be able to do certain things better than the practical men,
and as I believe must chiefly depend on their ability to establish prin-
ciples, to work out methods and to discover causes or the rationale of
practice. When they leave this field and put themselves in competition
with commercial horticulturists they run great risks of failure. It is
only in rare cases that experiment station horticulturists are likely to
have the means to make tests and selections and to do other things
done in commercial practice on as broad a scale as the commercial
growers do them. How often have experiments in horticulture, as well
as other lines of agriculture, fallen into contempt because they were
undertaken on too small a scale. The besetting sin of the station
horticulturist has been the yielding to the temptation to undertake too
many things at one time, to try this and that and the other thing in a
picayunish way. His more or less valid excuse too often has been
that many of these things were forced upon him by the imperative de-
mands of his horticultural constituency.
Both parties must learn more thoroughly the proper functions and
limitations of experiment station work in horticulture. The station
man must come to see more clearly that his proper work is to attack
problems which the practical man is not prepared to undertake and
the latter must recognize that it is folly to impose additional burdens
on workers already overloaded and that his efforts should rather be
mainly directed toward increasing funds and workers in horticulture at
the stations. As an aid to the discussion of the problems connected
with the establishment of the science of agriculture room was made for
a course in 'horticulture at the National Graduate School of Agricul-
ture held at the University of Illinois in 1906, and provision for a
similar course is being made for the session to be held at Cornell Uni-
versity and the Geneva Experiment Station in 1908.
With the enlargement of the scientific basis of horticulture, mainly
through the broadening work of the experiment stations, it should be
possible to organize instruction in horticulture in a sounder pedagogical
manner and to extend this instruction both inside and outside the col-
leges so as to reach many more students and benefit horticultural prac-
tice much more widely. The formulation and discussion of horticul-
tural courses for different grades of schools should be encouraged. A
valuable contribution in this line was made by Professor F. W. Rane in
his paper before the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and
Experiment Stations at its meeting at Washington in 1905 (Office of
Exp't Stat. Bui. 165). The preparation of horticultural text-books,
manuals and illustrative materials should also be promoted.
Especially, efforts should be made to secure the more thorough
organization and equipment of horticultural departments in some of
the agricultural colleges, located in states where horticulture is a great
agricultural industry. We need more of such specialization of develop-
96 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
ment by agreement among our agricultural colleges. While all of them
would do well to maintain respectable departments of agronomy, horti-
culture and animal husbandry, one or the other of these lines might
properly be emphasized in individual institutions in accordance with
its relative local importance. Thus in New York and California and a
few other states we may reasonably expect the development of horti-
cultural departments or schools more comprehensive and thorough than
anything in this line elsewhere in the world. State boundaries should
not prevent students from assembling themselves in large numbers
where they can receive the instruction of the most competent special-
ists under the most favorable conditions.
I believe there is plenty of opportunity for every state agricul-
tural college to make itself pre-eminent in some line of education or
research, and thus while doing good service to its state also greatly
benefit the nation.
Dr. Galloway : I have been greatly interested in Dr. True's
statements relative to education and training along horticultural lines.
There is one feature of this work, however, that has not been touched
upon here and I would like to call attention to it. I mean the real or
apparent gap between the thoroughly trained practical horticulturist,
especially the man who is engaged in intensive lines of work, and the
man who has been trained at one of our colleges in the sciences under-
lying horticulture.
For a good many years I have been occupied in securing men and
fitting them into places in our work in the Department of Agriculture.
Some of the men who come to us from the agricultural colleges are
pretty well trained in the sciences underlying horticulture, but I believe
I can say that all come to us with a woeful lack of appreciation of the
fact that practical horticulturists who have been for years working in
intensive lines have accumulated a vast amount of valuable informa-
tion which would be exceedingly useful if accepted, digested and used
by the scientifically trained mind. It is to be regretted, however, that
few, if any, of the young men who come to us have any just appre-
ciation of the value of this information, so easily available. On the
contrary it is not unusual for these young men to assume an air of
superiprity, both in matters of science and matters of practice, which
has a tendency to isolate them from the practical man. A curious fact
about the whole question is that, as a rule, the practical man under-
stands the situation perfectly, but out of respect for the things which
these young men represent, he is too considerate to complain. Not so
with the young man from the college. He is imbued with the absolute
necessity of impressing his knowledge, or sometimes lack of knowledge,
on the practical man to the end that it brings about a separation of
interests that ought to be avoided.
I attribute this difficulty largely to a lack of proper training in
the early educational work. My experience has been that men who
have come up from the proper horticultural environment, or, in other
words, who have lived as it were in horticulture prior to their going to
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 97
college, give us, as a rule, our best type. I enter the plea, threfore,
for instruction that will bring these fundamental facts to the minds of
students in such a way that they will appreciate and understand them
when they leave college. It would seem to me that this National Coun-
cil of Horticulture might do good service by bringing about such a
movement.
Air. Kendel : Mr. Chairman, the more I have to do with this
matter of school gardens the more I believe that the beginnings of
gardening will have to be taught in the public schools of our cities.
District schools are too small to make the necessary rivalry that city
schools have, to carry on such work successfully.
Our Home Gardening Association of Cleveland, O., made an ex-
periment this year that has been successful enough to encourage us
very much. We secured the use of a three-acre tract of land in the
heart of the city and the committee that was placed in charge of it
fenced off about one acre, built a good tool house, hauled eighty loads
of manure on it and plowed it in. We divided this area into four sec-
tions, each section into five plots, with a boy for each plot. Our plan
was to make this garden a training school for boys who wished to
make gardening a business, which was to stand in the same relation
to the school gardens as the high schools do to the grammar schools.
We wanted boys that had had a preliminary training of a year or two
in the school gardens to continue their training in advance lines. We
decided to make comparative tests of a number of varieties of different
kinds of vegetables, which could not be done in the schools on account
of the necessary small beds available, giving each group of five boys
all the varieties and placing each such group in competition with the
other three. Each boy had six beds 5x22 feet and each group tested
about fifteen varieties of lettuce, as many peas, perhaps a dozen varie-
ties of radish and the same of beans and beets. They also had two
varieties of tomatoes and peppers and one of egg plant, sweet corn and
later on turnips. Each boy had at most three of each kind.
They were shown how to grow successive crops on most of these
beds. Radish was sown between the rows of lettuce and when both
were gone, beets were transplanted into the same beds from the beds
in which the seeds were sown. Beans followed peas. Late crops of
beans were also planted between the rows of corn apparently to the
benefit of both crops.
Of course we made a few mistakes for we had it all to learn,
nothing like it having ever been attempted so far as we could find out.
We learned, however, and this is in line with the point already referred
to by one of the speakers, that some boys have the knack for garden-
ing and will make gardeners and others have not.
It seems to me we will not have to wait until the boy is grown to
find out if he is suited for this business; it develops very young. I do
not think the oldest of our twenty boys was over fourteen and they
ranged down to nine or ten.
Now it seems to me that in our school gardens is the place to begin
to educate our future agricultural college professors and at a time
98 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
when they can learn easiest and this Council of Horticulture could
undertake nothing more worthy than to foster this work as much as
possible, if we really wish to further the interests of agriculture and
horticulture in our country.
GOVERNMENT AID TO HORTICULTURE.
B. T. GALLOWAY, WASHINGTON, D. C.
Under the title assigned to me, namely "Government Aid," I pro-
pose to briefly outline the scope of the work now being conducted by
the national government along purely horticultural lines. Much work,
such as pathological, entomological, and other investigations, is also
being done, but as these lines bear indirectly on horticulture and have
been treated by others, I will not touch upon them here. To make my
remarks better understood, I will say that the investigations of the
Bureau of Plant Industry, where practically all the directly horticul-
tural work of the government is being conducted, are divided into defi-
nite and specific projects. These projects, for administrative purposes,
are grouped under separate and distinct heads, with responsible men
placed in charge of each group. The Department of Agriculture is
now expending for purely horticultural work approximately $175,000 a
year. It is co-operating with a large number of state experiment sta-
tions in all lines of the investigations which will be briefly described.
The groups of projects which we will now discuss are as follows:
(1) Horticultural explorations.
(2) Introduction, propagation and dissemination of seeds and
plants secured from foreign countries.
(3) Securing, propagating and disseminating new and rare seeds
and plants originated in this country, which can not be disseminated
through the regular channels of trade.
(4) Plant breeding investigations.
(5) Tropical and semi-tropical work, including the testing, propa-
'gation and dissemination of seeds and plants adapted to tropical sec-
tions.
(6) General horticultural investigations in connection with farm
management work.
(7) Experimental studies, demonstrations and tests at the Arling-
ton Experimental Farm.
(8) Systematic horticultural studies in reference to the identifica-
tion and description of fruit varieties, the simplification of fruit nomen-
clature, etc.
(9) Fruit marketing investigations, including experimental export
shipments of fruits.
(10) Fruit transportation and storage — prevention of injury in
transit, etc.
(11) Viticultural investigations.
(12) Fruit district investigations— the determination of the
adaptability of fruit varieties to different sections.
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 89
(13) Demonstrations, experiments and other work in connection
with plants under glass.
(14) Vegetable variety testing.
(15) Bulb culture, including experiments in the home growing of
Dutch and other bulbs on a commercial scale.
(16) School garden work.
The results accomplished in these lines of work may be briefly
summarized as follows :
HORTICULTURAL EXPLORATIONS.
For several years the Department of Agriculture has conducted
systematic exploration work in foreign countries in search of rare and
valuable seeds and plants for introduction into the United States. We
now have a trained explorer in the regions of North China and Man-
churia searching for new plants and seeds worthy of being trans-
planted to this country, and for wild forms of our cultivated fruits
and vegetables which may have characters of hardiness or unusual
vigor that will make them useful for the plant breeders of the United
States. Shipments of scions and of seeds representing hundreds of
interesting things have been received from our explorer and are now
growing in the trial grounds of the Department. New hardy persim-
mon varieties, interesting varieties of the English walnut, the Chinese
pistache, wild and cultivated apricots, the wild peach from its sup-
posed original home, hardy apples, and a very remarkable lot of Chi-
nese grape varieties are among the most recent things secured in this
way. The persimmon varieties mentioned are of the seedless type
known as the Pekin, which has been tested and found to be superior
in flavor to any of the Japanese persimmons, as well as hardier.
INTRODUCTION, PROPAGATION AND DISSEMINATION OF SEEDS AND PLANTS.
SECURED FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES.
In connection with its foreign exploration work the Department
maintains field testing gardens where the seeds and plants so secured
may be propagated with a view to their dissemination if found valuable.
The principal one of these gardens, located at Chico, Cal., is more
than 80 acres in extent and is actively engaged in the testing and dis-
tribution of numerous things received through our explorers. A total
of 53,270 plants were distributed from this garden during the past
year. Much attention is being given to the introduction and culture of
the pistache nut. New hardy stocks of this promising dry-land nut
crop have been secured from Turkestan, China and the driest deserts
of the Old World. About 16,000 seedling pistache trees were propa-
gated at the Chico garden last year for distribution throughout Cali-
fornia, Texas, Arizona and adjacent localities.
Another promising horticultural crop which is being introduced is
the date palm. The palms which have been introduced by the Depart-
ment into southern California and Arizona have borne hundreds of
100 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
pounds of delicious fruit, indicating that our work on this unique
desert culture will pass from the stage of a pure experiment to that
of a new industry. We are now conducting extensive life history
investigations of the date palm, in order to ascertain its exact soil,
climatic and cultural requirements. Similar work is also being applied
to the fig, pistache and other crops with promise of valuable results.
One of the introductions to which particular attention has been
given is the Japanese salad plant Udo, which grows well in many sec-
tions of this country and is handled and served very much like celery.
To secure the extensive use of the plant, however, will probably take
considerable time, as the taste for it is a cultivated one, like that for
the olive, mango, etc. It is a promising introduction, however, and is
already being widely disseminated and distributed.
SECURING, PROPAGATING AND DISSEMINATING NEW AND RARE SEEDS AND
PLANTS ORIGINATED IN THIS COUNTRY, WHICH CAN NOT BE DISSEMI-
NATED THROUGH THE REGULAR CHANNELS OF TRADE.
This work is largely incidental to other lines of horticultural work,
and is well illustrated by our annual distribution of the new citrus
fruit varieties developed by the Department, which I shall presently
describe. It is our policy wherever a new and promising variety is
secured in any of the various lines of work, to propagate the variety
extensively for distribution to growers for co-operative tests. In this
way we are able to ascertain fully the worth of any new variety, as
well as to exploit it where it is likely to prove the most valuable.
PLANT BREEDING INVESTIGATIONS.
Through the Bureau of Plant Industry the Department of Agricul-
ture is conducting much work in the improvement of plants by breed-
ing and selection. A number of horticultural crops are receiving atten-
tion in this way, including citrus fruits, pineapples, sweet corn, lettuce,
potatoes, etc. The work on citrus fruits and pineapples, which has
been very successful, has been conducted by Dr. Herbert J. Webber,
formerly in charge of our plant breeding investigations and now in
Cornell University. Many valuable new sorts of citrus fruits have
been produced by hybridization. The new hardy oranges, or citranges,
are being distributed to numerous growers for trial. These form an
entirely new class of citrus fruits, and are believed to be of great
value for cultivation as home fruits in the region from 300 to 400 miles
north of the present orange belt. In addition to these, other new fruits
have been developed, including the tangelo, a cross between the pomelo
or grape-fruit and tangerine orange, as well as new limes, tangerine
oranges, etc.
The pineapple breeding work has been conducted through a num-
ber of years, and has resulted in the development of new sorts pos-
sessing many improved characters that are believed to fit them for
general cultivation and to recommend them above other varieties now
cultivated. Among them are a number of smooth or spineless-leaved
NO -----
William Stuart,
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULlREw 101
varieties, very distinct from the Smooth Cayenne, which was t
smooth-leaved variety cultivated when the experiments began.
In the breeding work on sweet corn the object has been to secure
improved strains for canning purposes. In certain localities it has
been demonstrated that an excellent quality of sweet corn seed can
be grown and that, with good care, it will germinate much better and
produce better than seed obtained from other localities. The breeding
work with lettuce is conducted in connection with other intensive hor-
ticultural work, and many promising hybrids have been secured. This
work, in which I have been personally interested, has been conducted
during the past three or four years by Mr. George W. Oliver, who
has succeeded admirably in crossing lettuces — something, so far as I
know, never attempted before. We have worked largely with lettuces
for growing under glass. Our aim has been to secure types better
adapted to the needs of the eastern United States and the middle west.
Some work has been done in the improvement of potatoes, the breed-
ing of rust-resistant asparagus, and the production of a wilt-resistant
watermelon. These lines, however, are conducted incidentally to other
work and do not call for extended comment.
TROPICAL AND SEMI-TROPICAL WORK, INCLUDING THE TESTING, PROPAGATION,
AND DISSEMINATION OF SEEDS AND PLANTS ADAPTED TO
TROPICAL LATITUDES.
For some years the Department has devoted considerable atten-
tion to tropical and subtropical horticulture, and we now have two sta-
tions located in the southernmost portions of the United States. The
older of these gardens is located at Miami, Fla., the other having only
recently been established on the Fort Brown Military Reservation at
Brownsville, Tex. At our Miami gardens we are conducting many
lines of work in plant improvement, propagation, acclimatization, etc.
Attention is here being given to the propagation of the mango, avocado,
guava, and other tropical fruits, as well as of new varieties of seeds
and plants secured by exploration in foreign countries. Much atten-
tion is also being given to the propagation of citrus fruits. Frequent
distributions of seeds and plants for trial are made from the Miami
gardens.
At our Brownsville garden we propose to ascertain the possibili-
ties of south Texas in subtropical horticulture, and work is already
under way in the growing of citrus fruits, grapes, the date palm, etc.
Some work on tropical fruits and vegetables is also being con-
ducted in connection with other lines of work. Especially is this true
in relation to our foreign exploration work, the many new varieties
which are secured being sent to the subtropical gardens for trial.
GENERAL HORTICULTURAL INVESTIGATIONS IN CONNECTION WITH FARM
MANAGEMENT WORK.
In connection with its Farm Management Investigations the
Bureau of Plant Industry is making detailed investigations of the
102 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
methods of cultivating various truck and garden crops. Considerable
attention is being given in this way to potatoes. The results obtained
in growing potatoes in rotation have been carefully noted, as have been
the fertilizer requirements and other features. Some attention is also
being given to the marketing of farm products, and on the diversifica-
tion farms conducted by the Office of Farm Management a detailed
study of methods of truck farming has been made. In all these lines
of work useful information is being obtained.
EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES. DEMONSTRATIONS AND TESTS AT THE ARLINCTOX
EXPERIMENTAL FARM.
Several years ago Congress authorized the establishment on the
Arlington estate in Virginia, which is within easy access from Washing-
ton, of a general experimental farm for the work of the Department of
Agriculture. This farm has proved of great value to the work of the
Department. The horticultural work now under way at the farm
includes experiments in vegetable and fruit growing, the growing of
vegetables and flowers under shade, and tests of various garden crops.
The fruit nursery on the farm now contains several thousand trees,
and one acre of the farm is devoted to a model kitchen garden. Tests
of both Irish and sweet potatoes are being made to determine the yield
and keeping quality of various sorts, and other factors. Similar work
is also being conducted in co-operation with several state experiment
stations. During the past year the Department entered into a co-opera-
tive agreement with the Virginia experiment station in the establish-
ment of a truck station near Norfolk, Va.
Various field investigations are conducted in connection with the
Arlington farm, and an important feature of this work is the publica-
tion of Farmers' Bulletins dealing with the cultivation of various crops.
Among the field work under way is an investigation of the Bermuda
onion industry in Texas and .Louisiana, demonstrations in the growing
of truck crops on rice lands, and a comprehensive truck crop survey.
For the latter feature Congress provided additional funds during the
past year.
SYSTEMATIC HORTICULTURAL STUDIES IN REFERENCE TO THE IDENTIFICA-
TION AND DESCRIPTION OF FRUIT VARIETIES, THE SIMPLIFICA-
TION OF FRUIT NOMENCLATURE, ETC.
During the course of the year many fruits are submitted to the
Department for identification and description. In connection with this
work a pomological collection is maintained. During the past year
3,596 fruits were submitted for examination by orchardists and fruit
growers.
Considerable work in the simplification of varietal nomenclature
has been carried on, and several catalogues of revised terminology
have been published.- The lack of simplicity and uniformity in nomen-
clature of American fruits has been in the past a source of great losses,
and the Department is co-operating with the American Pomological
Society in the purification of varietal nomenclature.
FRUIT
B
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for s<
NATIONAL COUNCIL OK HORTICULTURE 103
FRUIT TRANSPORTATION AND STORAGE — PREVENTION OF INJURY IN TRAN-
SHIPMENTS OF FRUITS.
Experimental studies of the methods of harvesting, packing and
forwarding perishable fruits have been conducted by the Department
for several years. In these investigations an effort is made to ascer-
tain the relation of varieties, packages, methods of packing, etc., to the
requirements of long distance shipment, with special reference to con-
ditions experienced in ocean transit. For this purpose experimental
export shipments of fruits, chiefly to European markets, have been
made during the past few years. The export trade in Bartlett and
other early pears is an outgrowth of this experimental work, and the
total exports of this fruit now approach a million dollars annually.
Experimental shipments of both summer and winter apples have also
been made, and the practicability of establishing an export trade in
these fruits has been demonstrated.
FRUIT TRANSPORTATION AND STORAGE — PREVENTION OF INJURY IN TRAN-
SIT, ETC.
In close relation to the fruit marketing work, just described, the
Department is carrying on extensive demonstrations of improved
methods of shipping and storing perishable fruits, with special refer-
ence to the citrus fruit industry of California and Florida. Large quan-
tities of oranges handled in different ways have been under observa-
tion in transit in order to determine the temperature changes that
occur in the fruit and in the air of the cars. It is planned the coming
year to completely equip an experimental refrigerator car for use in
this work. These investigations have had the active support of grow-
ers, shippers, and transportation interests • and on account of the
thorough organization of the industry it has been possible to put into
practice the results of the investigations. Mechanical injuries to the
fruits are being reduced ; packing houses are being remodeled in the
direction of simplicity; and the transportation companies have shown
a disposition to make their service conform to the facts developed by
these experiments.
The work on fruit storage has been conducted as incidental to the
larger work on transportation, and special attention has been given to
the farm storage house problem.
Apart from the regular fruit transportation and storage investiga-
tions, some work on methods of curing lemons has been inaugurated
during the past year. It is recognized by fruit dealers that while the
American lemon is in most respects a very superior fruit, it is deficient
in keeping qualities after it reaches the market. To what cause this
deficiency is due is an open question. In the hope of getting some
light on it, investigations into the methods of handling lemons have
104 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
been begun in southern California. The work has been of a prelimi-
nary nature but has developed some promising lines along which to
attack the problem. A study of lemon storage will be a necessary for-
ward step in this work.
VITICULTURAL INVESTIGATIONS.
For several years past the Department has directed a special effort
toward the maintenance and upbuilding of the grape industry. The
chief part of this work is now located in California, although consider-
able attention is also being given to the rotundifolia grape industry of
the South. In California we have a number of co-operative experi-
mental vineyards where a great number of varieties are being tested,
including specially imported European stocks.
A considerable part of this work consists in the dissemination of
information regarding grapes and grape products. Several publica-
tions dealing with various viticultural problems have been issued from
time to time, and a great quantity of correspondence is conducted with
co-operative grape growers and others.
In the rotundifolia grape investigations a special study has been
made of the various requirements of this type of grape. The marked
differences found in the size, color, flavor, and quality of the varieties
in cultivation, most of which are wild vines or accidental seedlings,
indicate great possibilities of improvement under systematic effort, and
bid fair to bring into profitable culture considerable areas of unused
land in the south Atlantic and gulf states.
FRUIT DISTRICT INVESTIGATIONS.
This work is directed toward the determination of the adapta-
bility of fruit varieties to different conditions and their value for
specific purposes as influenced by the conditions under which they are
grown. Owing to the nature of the work it must be continued through
a course of years in order to arrive at intelligent and conclusive results.
The work is being prosecuted in several sections of the country, includ-
ing the Piedmont and Blue Ridge areas of the southern states, the
Shenandoah and Cumberland valleys, comprising the great Appalachian
valley, and the Ozark region of Missouri and Arkansas. Chief atten-
tion is being devoted to orchard fruits in these regions.
DEMONSTRATIONS, EXPERIMENTS AND OTHER WORK IN CONNECTION WITH
PLANTS UNDER GLASS.
In connection with its general greenhouse work the Department
carries on special investigations relating to the growing of plants under
glass. This work includes experiments in forcing tomatoes, the propa-
gation of tropical fruits, and also some work on florists' crops. The
latter phase covers such crops as carnations and chrysanthemums. The
Department conducts an annual chrysanthemum exhibit in connection
with this greenhouse work, which is largely attended.
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 105
Some work on greenhouse crops is also conducted on the Arling-
ton farm, where a special study of the influence of heat, light and
moisture on plants grown under glass is being made.
VEGETABLE VARIETY TESTING.
A special line of horticultural work which has been conducted for
several years is the testing and standardization of American varieties
of vegetables and the publication of monographs of the various garden
vegetables. These tests, which have now covered a period of ten
years, have included more than 15,000 samples. The first tests were
confined to experimental plots near Washington, D. C, but in recent
years the scope of the work has been extended to all sections of the
country, co-operation with the state experiment stations and others
being largely practiced. Three bulletins have been prepared contain-
ing monographs of certain vegetables, the most recent of which, now
in press, is devoted to the American varieties of garden beans. The
object of this work is to establish, as far as practicable, a standard of
perfection that will be a guide in making selections of variety types and
serve as an authority among vegetables.
This descriptive work has been carried on in a general way with
all the garden vegetables, but before publishing a monograph of a cer-
tain vegetable it is necessary to determine more closely the exact dif-
ferences in season, productiveness and other characters which are in
dispute among varieties, as well as to decide which types of the dif-
ferent varieties shall be adopted as the correct ones. We are endeavor-
ing here, again, as in the work previously mentioned with regard to
fruits, to simplify in every way practicable the varietal nomenclature by
adopting approved variety names and by recommending the discon-
tinuance of confusing, long-worded, or inappropriate names.
For a number of years the Department has been endeavoring to
ascertain how far the local conditions where seed is grown affect the
character of the plants developed from such seed. Special work of
this kind has been carried on with sweet corn and cabbage.
BULB CULTURE.
Investigations are being carried on in the encouragement of the
production of tulips, narcissuses and hyacinths on the Pacific coast.
At the present time three gardens are being maintained in that region
under the supervision of the Department. The climatic conditions of
the Puget Sound region are especially favorable to the development
of tulip and narcissus bulbs, and it is probable that the corner stone
of the American bulb industry will soon be laid in that region. We
are co-operating with commercial men who are endeavoring to develop
the industry, and plans are already under way for a considerable exten-
sion of the work.
SCHOOL GARDEN WORK.
For a number of years the Department of Agriculture has been
interested in the encouragement of school garden work. To this end
106 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
it has co-operated with the school authorities of Washington and other
cities in giving special information regarding horticultural work. In
Washington opportunities have been given the Normal School students
to study practical horticulture in connection with the work being car-
ried on in the Department greenhouses and upon the Department
grounds. Aid has also been rendered in the matter of lectures before
the students. From 80 to 100 Normal School graduates finish their
course each year, and these have all had special training in horticul-
ture and are applying this training in the teaching of the graded
schools. Garden work as a system of manual training has been inaugu-
rated, the beautification of the school grounds has been taken up and
completed, and the work is being extended to the beautification and
ornamentation of the homes of teachers and pupils. With a view to
extending this work as far as practicable special collections of seeds
have been prepared and distributed to schools throughout the country.
Brief discussions of the aims and objects of the school garden work
have been published and are distributed with the seeds.
The foregoing brief summary covers the main features of work in
the matter of government aid to horticulture. Necessarily many of
the details have had to be omitted, especially those relating to our co-
operation with horticulturists throughout the states in the experiment
stations and colleges, and with private individuals. Altogether I
think it may be said that horticulture is receiving attention in propor-
tion to other lines of work. Although there are many problems yet to
be undertaken the outlook is hopeful, and it is confidently believed that
rapid progress will be made in the future.
FEDERATION AND CO-OPERATION.
J. C. VAUGHAN, CHICAGO, ILL.
Following a general horticultural meeting at the World's Fair, St.
Louis, November 10th, 1904, and a second meeting of a committee of
seven at Chicago, July 20th, 1905, the National Council of Horticulture
was organized. Its objects, as then stated, were:
1. — To fraternize and concrete the horticultural interests of North
America.
2. — To consider questions of public policy and administration which
are common to these organizations.
3. — To act as a bureau of publicity in the interests of reliable
information pertaining to horticulture in its broadest sense.
Its composition is as follows :
1. — The membership shall consist of two delegates elected or
appointed by each national horticultural society, with nine delegates at
large.
2. — The Council shall elect an executive committee of nine persons,
at least five of whom shall be delegates at large.
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 107
This Council has held approximately semi-annual meetings since
that date, and while these meetings have not been largely attended,
number three of the stated objects has been carried forward with re-
markable success, mainly through the earnest and unselfish labor of its
Secretary, H. C. Irish.
So effective and obviously valuable to the seedsmen, florists and
nurserymen has this Publicity Bureau proven, that the national socie-
ties representing these three interests have, at their annual meetings,
after full consideration and discussion, voted liberal sums to carry on
this work, and I believe that no one of such organizations has ever
voted similar sums for a work practically established outside of its
membership, and I am sure that no cause has been similarly supported
by all of them.
It is not denied that any one of the horticultural interests in
America having a national organization could undertake similar work,
but it is contended that with the moderate funds available and obtain-
able from each society, a much better showing can be made, and with
greater economy, by carrying forward the work as it has been under-
taken by the Council, and its position in this regard is now well estab-
lished.
One word further as to the possibilities and value of this enter-
prise to the commercial interests above mentioned. So urgent has
become the demand for reliable horticultural information from the
leading daily and weekly newspapers of the country, that bureaus
have been organized to supply this information, and such articles are
being sold regularly, although the articles supplied by the Council of
Horticulture have been sent out free. I am satisfied that if the Coun-
cil had more funds to work with, enabling it to produce desirable news-
paper articles, these having so far been written free of charge, that we
might almost establish the bureau on a self-supporting basis by selling
some of the articles to a selected list of the largest daily newspapers
It will be readily understood that the articles sent out under the author-
ity of the Council of Horticulture carry weight and could be more
readily sold than those undertaken by private individuals.
Now as to the second object for which the National Council of
Horticulture was organized — to consider questions of public policy and
administration which arc common to the national horticultural organisa-
tions. All who have attended with reasonable regularity the meetings
of our national societies realize how much time is spent and often
wasted on discussion of subjects most properly handled by committees,
and further how often the work of such committees is the same in the
different societies. I may mention as examples the- subjects civic
improvement, transportation, customs, postage and some sides of the
nomenclature question. Now the work of each of the above commit-
tees from a single society, were it done in connection with another
national society, would be much more effective, and still more were
they all combined. A committee on customs, or on transportation,
with the backing of all the national societies in horticulture, would
mean something when presenting their claims for consideration to the
108 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE
proper authorities. Instances are not lacking where similar combina-
tions, representing all the branches of a great industry, have appeared
before the officials of a great national exhibition and insisted upon and
secured the proper recognition and awards, which would never have
been given them or even have been considered, had not such a general
committee been in existence.
The need for fair consideration of horticultural interests at the
national exhibitions is well known to everyone who has marked the
very apparent errors in buildings, in classifications, and in premiums at
many of them, and certain it is that horticulture in its broadest sense
has not been rightfully considered at these exhibitions, and never will
be until our interests act together as they can do through the represen-
tation they now have in the National Council of Horticulture, by regu-
larly elected delegates, and by the co-operation which this brings about.
The Council, because of the few actual workers available in its
ranks, the difficulty of frequent meetings, and because of the widespread
locations of its members and its lack of funds for traveling expenses,
has not taken up actively the other lines of its work above mentioned,
but it must be done, and the growth of the Council and the willingness
of its membership to contribute funds, prove that its further work will
surely be taken care of in the reasonably near future. As soon as more
frequent meetings can be had and a fair attendance be counted on, the
broader questions of nomenclature and international co-operation on
similar lines will be in order.
It is not, and has never been, the object of the Council of Horti-
culture to take up any work which up to the present time is the exclu-
sive work of any single national interest, but to act only as a represen-
tative body of these various interests on lines which are common to
them all and which no one can claim the right or privilege to take up
and do for the others. For instance, the organization of a National
Congress of Horticulture would hardly be the duty of the national apple
growers, florists, or nurserymen, but can well be conceded as coming
within the province of a council like this, organized and supported by
these separate interests and made up in its membership by actual dele-
gates from the various societies, combined with noncommercial members
interested in the educational side of horticulture, and without commer-
cial interests, against whom no charge of commercialism or commer-
cial interest in the work can be made.
It is the intent of the Council to elect from its noncommercial
members its permanent chairman. While the present temporary chair-
man is from the commercial delegates, yet it has been his aim to so
conduct the affairs of the Council that no charge of commercialism
could be made.
STAMPED "BLOW
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